Corp O’ Real

Mouth numb muttering hopeless come come!

Tongue dizzied from pirouettes

And all time spent 

Jigging in a salty bath 

While nose hovered near 

Skin safe from warm body oozin’ booze. 

Shake it off,

Let it stick to roof of mouth like paste

If it drips, it’ll sustain him

During perky commitment to touch viscus.

Under for awhile, her wing shaped legs 

Keep him lively, rapidly massaging 

Her swollen pulp into a panic of tingle thrills.

Anatomy contorts,

Committed to the way body blows 

Her shape is an S

Fist pulling hair with pain

No sophistication or subtle contempt

She hisses, “SEXXXXXXXXXXXXXX!”

Oh please! In a woman’s mind salacious stories cycle

Make her pelvis tilt, her hands tear sheet’s skin.

His lashes blow back, pupils big as an O, 

Happy to see her act like so,

So gorgeous in her gasm-glow.

Between walls a heated night

Damp around her waist

Body yawns backwards

Ruby nipples stand out in blackness,

A detail he tries to take from her

See if what breaks bleeds,

Stains his pearly whites,

After bite.

Lost their cool, 

Animals after the afternoon 

Thick drape keeps them secret

But if eyes were to see

Would they be made more real in their lust

Than found performing love with Eros? 

Within low light, She shows no unbearable weight of being.

I want you in shadow

Not behind
Not before
Only within.

Otherwise, without you,
I will want myself kept.

Surrounded by half light

Diluted
Weakened
Adulterated by filth of naked skin.

WARNING:
Show me all and
I will want none.

A fault of your own unbearableness,
To let your body fall into tangents,
Mind and meaning go missing, because.
A shame to lose beauty! And willfully?
I’d rather be dead than alive,
Knowing.

Unconcerned with polishing mystery
What’s cracked can’t become treasure
Still had its splits, the muck can stick in.
I will have you as is—unholy wanted.

Won’t commit myself to strain
There’s no need for lucidity,
When shadow takes to skin freely.

No want to find flesh full-figured
Shown through the gauzy gaze of morning,
A sunlit surprise.

Lift eyes only in night watch
Heads bobbing in pools of black
I make out

A neck, here
The crotch, there
And deep in
Several holes of emptiness
Comes the vapid voice confused.

No panting
No purrs
Cries clawing in
The places between limbs entangled.

Discharged from feeling
Inky lips lip off,
“I want to know all of you in the void.”

mutineer + loose salute

i construct something missing in you as well as in me

the stream of life by clarice lispector

i don't know what i am writing about: i'm obscure even to myself. i transmit to you not a message of ideas but rather an instinctive voluptuousness of what is hidden in nature and that i sense. and this is a feast of words. i write in signs that are more gesture than voice...i remake myself in these lines...this is an exercise in life without planning. the world has no visible order, and i have only the order of my breathing. i let myself happen.

the stream of life by clarice lispector

unfolding into the present, i wrote you in the very core of the instant.

to begin means to start

A large quantity of my being takes place in the liminal space between innateness and projection. Within these states of mind is a progression of time—a time destined for clarity but which seems to circle itself, arriving somewhere no time soon—a time I would go so far to qualify as unproductive decision-making. Of course, this space is an interior landscape, and refers to my self and the mind and how we work together, in a rubbing motion, to spark thoughts into being. I can sit minute upon minute, hours falling upon the other, waiting for a want to overtake me—to startle me into action and move me into a series of thoughts. Other times, I don’t have to wait at all. There is an immediacy that sets my mind in motion, my fingers burning, trying to stomp their selves out on the keyboard. I wonder whether the stagnant moments is the result of my heart not being ambitious—my eyes being unable to focus in on what I am trying to see, even make myself see! (But why the rush?—the urgency to become?—why not just start from where I am?) In my moments of idleness could it be that I do not care?—care enough?—or maybe I care more and I am intimidated by the intensity of my feelings. Perhaps I struggle most to speak (even to a computer screen) when my mind, heart and body can feel the fragility of the subject—the value and significance I am responsible for imbuing it with—can tell how in this situation I treat the act of writing: my fingers stringing letters as if they were pearls, sentences as if they were strings—with such delicacy, I try to make meaning—so often looking within myself, and yet having to simultaneously master the art of seeing through opaqueness. But I cannot leave any traces of this difficulty—this struggle to make caring tangible, materialized. No one would trust my authenticity, the genuineness of my writing gestures, if they knew the process it takes to begin and end. I am not sure everything was meant to be discussed, developed, framed. I suppose this digression is a glance at how, at times, I begin: by forcing myself to concentrate on my thoughts, settle down to my thinking and produce something that comes out of the awareness of my being in relation to those separate and innately marvelous in their otherness from myself, (I exist singularly). I have to pull the external inward. I have to. Perception makes it so there is no other way. And if there is, I am so far from seeing its sign—from feeling the difference.

When illuminating the presence of another, I cannot just begin anywhere, as I can with myself. I feel I have to be careful—precise. I have to know more of what I want from them, more of what I see. Whereas, I can blindly go searching within myself, and I will still end up with parts of me—it is not the same process with another. I cannot be as fearless. I would not want to mistake them. Yet, when I think of some other whom I appreciate—when I look closely at what appeals to me—I still find fragments. I am sure it says something about me, having only sketches of characters distinct from myself. Perhaps very simply, it shows that I have not, yet, been dedicated enough to the luminosity of other subjects—that I still am unclear about the absoluteness of any of us. Words are my attempt at making those written more whole. And myself always slides in to be included, for who is the narrator, but another me.

this is me to you

I admire your calling me. I think of it as the most telling gesture you could have made within the circumstance. I imagine you had to reason before making the call—the negatives being my having not returned your past attempts, my elusiveness and most harmful, the ego and how it advises us to go against our want so we think we are superior even though we know we feel otherwise. I admire your out-stepping the above. I think your decision to make a gesture to me speaks over the silence (so often a byproduct of distance). This, too, is attractive because it is evidence that you are smarter than the ego. To use a cliché, you followed your heart—you listened inwardly, not outwardly—and its intention was to have us speak. Try, try and you will succeed. Your message was not anything other than the feeling it aroused in me—a feeling of comfort inspired by your consistency of character. Leaving a message—as you always had—a touch so small, but vital for communication. I don’t think you were thinking about your own embarrassment or even the potential of creating mystery for yourself. You thought about the other, who you were calling for and the significance of someone else provoked you to carry out the reason of your call. You let me experience how you wanted me to feel—special, memorable—at the time. I frame this moment because I think it is an important example of choices—and I wish you could know I recognize these times, the chances one takes and what each gesture says about one’s character. When I didn’t pick up for the third time, you did not shy away from the instinct that moved you to act. You let me remember you as I had you: personally and with no intentions other than the one that was being made. Reminding me how everything is easier when you let yourself be.

Talking, I tried picturing you not as you were but as you are. Although, undeniably, I hoped they were one and of the same. I hoped you hadn’t changed—even though I broke up with you wishing you would, probably even telling you to. I guess this means I want to recognize you when you speak—feel as though you are coming from the same place, but just seeing out from a better vantage point. I have always thought you are memorable for who you are, and I hope during our distance you have only become more strong, assertive and driven. I hope you have changed by becoming more of who are, and that you have not changed what you are. And whispering, I admit, I hope you don’t change into what you imagine a female will love and/or want more. Because that is when I remember you stopped being yourself—when you stopped being who I could be, unwilling and willingly, in love with. Inventing yourself changes everything. The process and outcome feels fraudulent—the sight, transparent.

Weaving through the village, sounds breaking sentences, dissolving details of words I loved how it never seemed to bother you. My hurried pace…cell phone balancing between ear and shoulder…minds of our own—how informal I made it—as if the pulsations of Manhattan could be my own crutch in the possibility of a paralyzing conversation—as if I used the chaos of city life as an excuse for the quivering tones of my voice. All these things mere protectors against all I did not know—who could say I would want to speak to you?—who could know what any of it would all mean?

But it was almost tragic—how easy it was to fall back into a causality of being. And I give you so much of the credit. The ability to admire me for my hysterical way of being…shirt falling off my shoulders on the street…listening to conversations that interrupted our own…it never seems like external conditions have to be perfect for or controlled by you, like you—still—derive the best from everything, as if everything is perfect in its being present. I think it is impossible not to acknowledge how our thoughts weave themselves with one another. How you can begin my train of thinking and finish my sentence. But I suppose that is all more about us—and not uniquely about you—and I have to remember that is what this is all about: you!—what I admire about you.

I admire your stories—how they seem to hang off everything. You create memorable moments. And is that not what it is all about? Living—not waiting to finally live—but to be involved in doing it. People that see situations with all their eyes—can make a story out of simplicity, not wait for it to be made for them—how honorable…and that person is you.

You tell me about your travels…two weeks off and on trains on your own. You said you chose not to bring music or novels—claimed another’s words would detract from the production of your own. I think you are on to something. But I cannot imagine being empty handed…a train, destined down a line, ridden into the unknown. While you tell me all this, I remember wandering in foreign countries and feeling alone, unknown, fearful that I did not have a voice anyone could hear. I admire your theory on travels—you take off and go. You don’t need anything but yourself on scene. You live the life you are in—the life you are amongst. You do not bring your life there; you assume the life that the culture identifies with. And I believe this is the secret to becoming, to learning, to understanding the other—by becoming them, by forgetting the preoccupations of yourself, how your body is affected by living elsewhere as other.

“I laid in a hammock…smoked hash...hung with the hippies…they played classic music…I was one of them,” and aided by your words I imagine you, just hangin’. A toe in sand, eyes dreaming, your head of curls absorbing all the light. And as soon as I imagine you, you become an image on a screen before me. I feel like I have nothing to say, that I can’t react soon enough—it all seems like make believe—you on a hammock hanging in the space between cares and the world, where the two never touch. “I drank all fresh fruit juices.” I can see you there, your hands cupped, sipping, like a child taking a break from running around in the backyard. I have my problems with this, but I have to give it to you—you have the heart of a child, and I cannot not love you for it, for I feel I did not let myself be one long enough. You tell me the flavours of the juices, and I receive pleasure knowing just how good you are at tasting the world, not holding yourself back, savoring the richness that is so readily available. I always loved the way you derived such intangible moments of being from the overwhelming pleasures of food. While I use to watch you and listen as you talked about your meals, I know somewhere within me, I vicariously lived through you. And all of me benefited from witnessing you let yourself go—to reason so very much like a child: impulsively, internally, with heart and without societal distraction. I hoped you hadn’t lost any weight…hated how you had become thinner…I thought it showed less security in you, than otherwise. And if I could take one thing from our conversation it would be the knowingness that your wants are not superficial, that underneath all the stories of your travels is the heart of the story—that you are confronting the deepest part of yourself.

I spoke indirectly about men you knew and that I had been with. Somehow and in someway I applaud you for not letting your voice divulge that you knew. I commend you for saying their names before even I—again it shows that you are smart and not choosing to avoid the true intention behind my words. I feel for you when you put up with my meaningless banter over fragmented stories of them. Regardless of my being vague and indirect, you are strong and it does show. I guess beneath it all, you know I am just connecting myself to them—trying to tie myself to someone apart from you. But importantly, you know me well enough to know how I feel, that they are stories while you were the event.

No mention of your girlfriend. If I didn’t know on my own, there is nothing in your voice or in the words you use to speak to me that would even hint at her. I know I could still think you were being deceiving, but now I wonder whether you are being smart. I tell you I have to go…I’m late to class…what would I have done if your voice didn’t keep me company on my walk to campus? A moment before I let the dialogue end, you tell me I had always been your best friend…you wonder what has happened…insist I call, anytime for no reason at all.

there is no end to end on

Of course, between these paragraphs are the gaps that speak of “us”—why, when, where, how. I tried to leave the feelings out, but even the mind knows to sneak them in. Moments glue us together. And as I said before, you have always been the best at them. You know that is what you do, make moments memorable. I could say more, just as I could have said less, but where I end will never be enough. It is true, I could go on forever—there is always more to reveal in love and on loss.

Perhaps revealing is indulgent on both behalves—teller and listener, writer and reader—you learn more about what I feel for you and how I think of you and I learn what it means to me, how much I know and have to learn. Thinking of an individual I admire was difficult. I wanted to find someone—perhaps even someone I hadn’t thought of in awhile, someone who wasn’t obvious—that embodied everything special and significant to me in life. But almost immediately, I found how impossible that was—and therefore, I began seeing others in fragments, in hidden places that they perhaps don’t see themselves. They moved me within spaces of a vignette. I don’t know yet entirely what it means, but I think it conveys how we all contain a gift—a secret some know and some may learn. But most importantly, I believe it signifies that we don’t—and are not expected to—have everything. Instead, we embody some thing, which seems to mean much more.

Writing about ‘you’ began unconsciously as a gesture to reach out and continue our dialogue. You told me to call—and you are right, I should, could and can—but some how I won’t let myself, not yet, not so freely. This, of course, helped me look kindly upon your behavior. And it also made me wonder whether we admire what we want and don’t have. Do we inject outsiders with praise—internally reward them with thoughtfulness—because we respond to them as if they were our other? An other we have an insatiable curiosity for?—reasoning that if we can know them better, than we can know who we could be and even who we may want to be more fully? I think my decision to write about ‘you’ was a sincere desire to make you glow and stand on your own. But the more I wrote thoughtfully, the more I saw that I also had been attracted to taking the time and using it to clarify us. So much of the time I took to describe you, was me thinking of you—it was not you giving yourself to me, but me projecting my idea of you on to you. When I imagined you, you became an image. And I wonder if this is a fault of my own or a result that is impossible to avoid. Perhaps, there is another way of seeing subjects and another way of having one’s mind think of them. Perhaps there is a point where I fall away and I let them be as they are. Perhaps at that point, the subject has more clarity and I won’t need to think of them to have them exist for me. If these things are possible and goals I am unconsciously working towards, than they are also nothing I have experienced yet. It is very well that had you not called, I would not have chosen to write about you, because so much of the moment that instigated the writing involved the inclusion of us. I wish I could separate myself, but once two people experience each other, I don’t think they can faithfully go back to the time when their being was not a result of their duality. One cannot judge that place of being because how one reasons now is a result of past experience. The mind that came before us, is something I will never be able to attain again—it will be absent forever. So, who knows, maybe I am wrong, self-involved, but I cannot help loving you for the ways you have made me feel—since you letting me feel is what added to my life and made me come alive in ways unknown to me prior to the moment.

I can say that I admire you for not judging others and for being accepting of their imperfections. But that would only be half of the truth. I am not sure I would know about how you affect others because that does not involve me. I can only hope you are consistent across the board. Therefore, what I entirely meant was I admire you for not judging me when everyone felt they had to. I admire you for letting me keep my imperfections, for being smart in knowing ridding ourselves of every flaw is impossible. I admire you for helping me accept where I wanted so desperately to be perfect, but felt I wasn’t. I admire you for your patience while inspiring me to judge less of myself, judge myself differently and to not judge myself through the imperfect gaze. I admire you for letting me fall asleep even though I was youthful and had the energy to stay up. I admire you for holding my hand beneath the table on Thanksgiving dinner. I admire you for smiling at me when I took my first bite out of a dinner you knew I did not want, but which most everyone truly can’t resist. I admire you for loving me through my difficulty—dragging you to different bodegas to find the perfect papaya because I was hungry for digestive aids. I admire you for taking pictures of me, as if I had nothing to be ashamed of, as I spoon-fed myself fruit with orange skin palms and you devoured Belgian fries. I admire you for taking pictures, for documenting love, so I have something from that time to always hold. I admire you for being careless, for being free, for feeling safe.

Although, one can say that the above all entails me, all reflects what I need, those qualities have everything to do with you. I believe they are the most difficult qualities to have, which is—without fail—why we all in our hearts to hearts aspire to attain them. I hope through all my tangents I was able to illuminate your rarity—a gift even the most gifted would admit is too involved to explain. I admire you from beginning to end—of this story and our own, separate and secret—for being my best friend, for revealing your interior hope with me (the hope that I will have not forgotten us). I admire you for appreciating the small gestures in life that mean everything. I admire you for speaking of that.

port o'brien

Stuck on a Boat - Official Video from Port O'Brien on Vimeo.

shot on super 8

i am so happy for this band. i saw them perform in manhattan last year, and was absolutely riveted. and now to see them being picked up and more recognized, really, i don't know, i am just pleased - thankful. van, the blonde, is the sexiest performer - truly a man you can stand there watching and be in awe of. not to mention how much he reminded me of an old boyfriend - that never fails to help. and then, in the restroom seeing cambria, the female singer, and not being able to not tell her how she reminded me of my favourite author, anais nin, and then to (such) a surprise, her response being that anais was her muse and she had a novel of her's in her car. all in all, i dig this band, and am moved by them. the secret to life is being serious about your passion, but not taking yourself seriously. i think they do a good job.

Port O'Brien I Woke Up Today from Port O'Brien on Vimeo.

and even this, is something, to be happy for.

when i write "i remember" i do hope you can read through my veil of language, the barrier between mentality and projection. i hope you can see within this avoidance of contact, what is actually within my body and pushing out - a release through skin. i hope you give me but one genuine gesture, your consciousness, a sobering to the reality of all i have: a committed heart reminding my mind to remember you, to picture us, as we once were.

Between High and Low

i woke and wrote about an image
Invisible influence
Looking beyond,
An existence intangibly
Not ours.

Footprints fallen
In the sand.
Foam, a white gurgle,
Blisters between our toes
The sea is in heat!—delirious,
Its belly rising over land.

Birds scoop—
Beaks skimming shoreline,
Their wings an open fan
Of muted hues.
We adore,
How quick they move.

Breaking through the tide,
In silhouette, chasing after—
A dash on our heals,
Dancers in the sunlight
We are, escaping our tracks,
Keeping our bathing suits on.

Fleeing the current
With bodies directionless,
Our figures kite-like
Weaving through air,
The space between
Sea and sky.

Man is, this, Nature:
Unpredictable
Uncontrolled.
Hearing only illusions,
The poeticism of shells.

Our tongues trace
A language told in gestures
Oysters, a sort of headphone,
Over our ears—
A hiss of waves,
Begging pardon,
Slippage in speech
A fleshy muscle rolls off
Like fingertips
Caressing an organ.

Our open mouths—
The sea—
Salty, explorative
Black holes, come night!

Dive yourself deeper
Like a shooting star
Burning skin.
Stem erect,
The flower’s face
Wilts from fusion.

No matter how close
The sea,
An outsider,
We cannot know
Precisely its extent.
Unless, maybe, by
A deep acquaintance.
Not a raping—
Something sensual—
Like a ripping apart of souls.

Take the waves,
Our fleeing partners,
Keep them still
Within our eye.

Watch, and they go.
Chase!, a moment too late
So close behind,
We move through their
Last breath.

Pleading, “Tire!”
Wait wave,
Come together
In forgiveness.
Leave sea
And ME
With no agitation,
Just one long sigh.

Soles linger
Buried in the sand.

I feel MY face

I find my face in the mirror. It barely looks present. But, there I am. My eyes come in and out of focus with life—a surface gleam of hope. Thoughts are similar to my days: repetitive and ritualistic. An echoing sounding something like, “I wonder whether all this nonsense is hurting me.” My eyes an open wound. Father says, “When you wake each morning, you decide where you want to spend your day—in hell or in heaven. You can live heavenly, but you have to want to.” By you, he means, us all. I tell him I want to write a novel with choices being the thematic. For example, I continue, “You’re walking past the bodega on 9th street, you go to grab a fruit—a fugi apple or a bosc pear—what will it be? Your bed facing to the window or the door—how may it change the way you feel? Opening up your eyes and deciding to act or to stay thinking—can your reaction change your life?” These are all choices—I tell him—all a weighing of wants. 

I take a shower—try to prolong time, drag it out, make it last, wonder whether if you concentrate hard enough you can suspend water as it comes falling on your skin. I stretch out on the bath floor—savor the sound of water cascading down my spine—close my eyes and try to believe I am in a rain forest—a hot moisture, like a heavy breath, embraces my no longer visible skeletal back. I feel and think two different things at once. I feel ridiculous lying in a shower—feel ridiculous that I need to savor shower moments in an attempt to steal extra time to breathe. And I think in dialogue with myself—trying to give myself a pep-talk—how to begin this day on a new note, change, take action, be proactive. Thought: “Is writing encouraging me to go crazy?” Then I wonder whether I am wasting water—whether activists would want to start a riot outside my bathroom door. I feel guilty, savor an extra few seconds of the shower and then, step out. 

I oil my entire body and sadly admit that no make up would cover up these awful dark circles, like mud, beneath my eyes. On the couch, my sister stares at me. “What is it?” I ask—knowing I should not care and knowing it will not be anything I will feel better knowing. Your face is looking beautiful, but, oh please be careful with your eyes. You have to start wearing sunscreen. I can already see the damage. And I myself worry too… Blah, blah, blah. I turn and look at her, and notice that her eyes look as if they are holding my face—as if inside her hands there is safety—as if my face is my most fragile entity—as if my eyes are glass. I have the worst headache of the year. I always feel under pressure. I wonder whether the writing has become too much, too much, too much, too much. I tell blank that it is too much “me, me, me, me, me”, too many Is, too many eyes. I gotta get out, I say. Before I leave him, blank asks me if I can spend the weekend writing about someone else, describing something I admire. I immediately begin trying to locate that one person in my mind. I can tell he thinks I want to dismiss his idea—I don’t—not at all. Blank says, he thinks it will be a good idea—a good way of finding something external—of reaching my goal. I know I don’t need the encouragement. I know he is right—I want to get rid of the “I” and “me”. I walk home, loving the city streets, but wondering whether Manhattan is just too much on me right now—whether I need to begin looking elsewhere for next fall. I wonder whether I am always running—whether I am always trying to avoid myself—whether I am fearful of my shadow not standing before me as I go walking.

i don't know how much i have been thinking.

my inspiration is a poem of the miraculous in the everyday... which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished. how fascinating it is to find what influences and inspires, what is filtered out and becomes flotsam winding 'somewhere safe to sea,' and yet is never lost because it has found life in a story, a painting, a song 

-amy hempel.

we drank five-star metaxa on the island of crete and aspired to the state of music 

-carole maso, ava.

hence i am not a disinterested seeker after perfection through the sand. colours stain the page; clouds pass over it. and the poem, i think, is only your voice speaking 

-v. woolf, the waves.

OOOOOOOO, I am still so shy.

There was something unreal. About his gesture. Still, I am. Shy there. There, a touch. Between two. There is an introduction of bodies:

Happy to meet, he rises. Says hello. Still, I am. Shy. There, there a touch. You don’t have to speak at all. Still, I am. Shy, just lying here. Still, I am happy to meet. He rises. My face, a flower, falling open. Red, red, I am a rose. He rises. Smelling for my scent, his nose scratching at my skin. My eyes, a mirror, see his skin. Cocaine scratching his nose. I am, still, shy. Shoving itself into my mouth, words. I am sinking beneath weight. Words weigh a fucking ton. Silent, I am, still shy. His hand a spoon. Feeding its way into. My open lips. Pursuing, a tongue. Numb and beating. Blood rush, numb. Palpable, beating. Cocaine skin, his nose scratching. I can can can, “Taste you”. Up down around and around. I am coming. Still, I am shy. I am coming. I am still. So happy to meet you. I am shy, lying here. You don’t have to speak I said. Still, I am here. Here I am, shy. Imagine something else, lying here. Hand presses. Your body feels like dough. Pressing the muscle of my shoulder. Molding me. The perfect lover. To not be. Still, so shy. Closing the lids of my sight. Lying here, imagine you are someone else, somewhere other. My eyes pretend to dream. His tongue pursuing my open lips. I fall away. Red and beating. My hand grabs. An impossible sky. Imagine somewhere. Fingers feel wet. I see sea. I am always so close to coming. There, there a touch. Smelling for a scent. Fish. Nose scratching at my skin. My open lips, a wound. Fish flying for freedom. I see sea. Eyes pretend to dream. You can be anyone. I see myself. Running toward a beach. Naked skin, like a fish. I see sand. You can be. Still, I am shy. Anywhere. A castle! I see myself. Running toward a beach. I want to be someone in a castle. Feet press against the sand’s skin. I am falling. My body shaped as an arch, I imagine. I was meant to be on my knees. Hands feel powder. Fingers beneath the sand’s skirt. Prodding for a pearl. Pearls crushed into powder. Cocaine for the rich and famous. You can be anyone. Nose scratching at skin. Breathe, the beach. Blood rush. Smells like sea, beating. I can can can taste the sand. Through my nose. My eyes closed. Pretend they are dreaming. I can be anyone. Half my size. Like a pearl, cocaine. Words weigh a fucking ton. I see myself without them. Words dragged down the sand’s floor. Away from me. In a net, imprisoned with the shells. I am shy, still. You don’t have to speak at all. I feel so much lighter. Like the beach. My flesh is pink inside. I can can can, “Taste your pearls”. Between legs shaped as a diamond. I am addicted to your smell. Like the sea full of fish. Fingers feel wet. My eyes are dreaming, I imagine. Chelseeeeea, you are a mermaid. I like swimming in your water. Can breathe you all day. His nose scratching at my skin. The rich and famous live off cocaine. Can breathe you all day. My eyes are dreaming a beach. Left alone. I am shy. Still, all by myself. I see sea. I can can can, “Taste you”. Imagine you are somewhere other. Teasing my skin long into the night. It owns us both. I race to the sea, naked. I can be anyone with my eyes closed. Pretending to dream. Half the weight. Without words. Meanings are less. I will be light. I like the beach without shells. Looks pink, like flesh. I stare out into the sea. Breathe, so light, the air. There is nothing to see. In the sea, an impossible sky. Void of color, the sea, a black hole. At night, I go missing, in the darkness. I can’t see myself, looking into the mirror. No reflection in the sea. Imagine you are someone else, lying here. There is no one else I can think of. When everyone is always staring at me. No words. I am, still, so shy. Just breathe. The pearls. Smells like sea. Tastes like sand. I can be anywhere with my eyes closed. The sea, a type of glass, stretching for miles. I can be anyone without words. The sea like a mirror of glass. My knees pressing into skin. Breaking, the floor of the beach. Breathe. No one in the mirror. Heaving. Missing in the night. I am nothing when I am shy. You don’t have to speak at all. Through my sleep, I speak of the future. My lips like a flower falling open. So close. My lips, so red, like petals. I’ll mold you into the perfect lover. Pulling loose, my rose. So red like a mouth beating. I can can can, “Taste you”. Nose scratching my skin. Breathing in addiction. I am so close to coming. Turn them on. I want to wake to light. See myself hovering over the mirror. OOOOOOOO. In your eyes. OOOOOOOO. I don’t care if I am. Still, shy, on my present-bed. Our limbs ribboned in the center. I am so close to coming. OOOOOOOO. Into sight. He rose. So happy to have met you. OOOOOOOO. So happy I made you come. What did you imagine, lying here? The future reflects itself. In light. I see. The sea. In your eyes. A mirror. Image of my face. A thousand words of weight. All ending with OOOOOOOO.

going hungry - book review.

sunday new york times book review GOING HUNGRY: Writers on Desire, Self-Denial, and Overcoming Anorexia

"the anorexic surfaces, though, not simply in pursuit of an empty 'gossip girl' perfectionism, but as a figure who equates her unsated hunger with nobler concentration and moral purpose. she reimagines restraint and mythologizes it as virtue..."

from am to pm.

This afternoon, on seventh street, standing next to a man, I tried not to stare as he pulled out a key from his pocket and shoved it into his ear to remove wax, or a built up of some sort. Discovering he hadn’t been successful, he used his long pinky nail to go diggin’, than placed his unburied treasure between his front teeth and made a quick sucking sound that could barely be heard over the conversing cars. But I—I heard and saw it all, just out of the corner of my eye and one ear alone. Yesterday in the park, a man brushed his teeth while he sat on a bench in the sun. Early in the morning, a woman watched the neighborhood wake up as she sat restless in her wheelchair. There were no legs in her pants. Between C and Layfatte five men said, “You’re sexy” because they saw the way you touched your hair, liked the way you touched yourself, imagined how might—if you let them see you letting yourself. The way you bite your bottom lip makes them think you’ve got appeal, but really—you think—I just hold my tension in my jaw. Early into the evening a helicopter looked like it was landing on the sea, but as I looked out the cab window all I could catch in sight was a passenger, with his chin up, shaving after work. At dinner I sat at the end of a long table and faced a mirror that was probably twelve feet long. If I was “in-the-moment” I didn’t think to look up and see into myself or if I was distracted enough I may have just looked through myself. I don’t know, I hadn’t been thinking about it, but the times I had, and staring straight ahead of me, I saw myself—I’ll tell you—I was surprised. I walked behind a couple on the way home and watched as her left arm glazed over his warm blue back, her head titled to his side the entire way. I thought about the texture of romance. How romance is being able to feel skin even through layers. I didn’t even have to close my eyes and try, I could just remember: steel gray sweaters, wondering whether the fabric was an illusion, thinking it was his substance that you wanted to feel close to, his invisible shirts you could touch a million times more, one hand kept at the bottom of his back. I remember winter, lips purple in the outside air, frozen fingers poking out of pockets just to put around his back, lips kiss kissing kissed, winter, melting. I know in the fall you are suppose to see colors on the trees, but all I saw today was the world become greener—dark, warm, like the walls are falling in on you, but you aren't fearful. It felt like the hunting camp, being in the middle of nowhere you knew and nowhere you needed to escape from. It tasted of the red wine we drank, flies drowning in our plastic cups, their wings half beating causing ripples (or was that caused by something else?), nothing in between the desire for intoxication because there was nothing to worry about—just flies stuck between teeth and not sleeping with each other, unless of course we wanted to—but those aren’t things to worry about, just fun, just games. That’s how the night tasted. Like wine. Like flies between our teeth. And that’s how I felt. Warm. Like the world was growing darker in romance. When I passed through the park and he sat there with his dog. I saw him seeing me and watched as he looked into the air, through the tree, with everyone looking at a “what is it?—a twig”. And then, how he let his eyes fall and look back at me. That’s how I felt. Warm. When I tried to keep his stare. But couldn’t. Had to turn my face away from the fence. Because he made me smile, made me laugh. Because he broke me down. Surprise is what you feel, when a man resonates because he got you to smile without having to do anything at all, yet by doing so many few things. A man that can distract me from myself. That can match my thought. That is aware of what I am choosing to see out of the many images before me. The things I don’t expect, seeing myself act in unexpected ways—those surprises—are what I can taste. And I wish my eyes were cameras and by blinking I meant “smileeee”. Then, maybe, I could capture more of what I feel, capture what I see and haven’t been able to keep.


And so many times I say ‘you’ I mean to say ‘I’. And so many times I say ‘you’ I wish I could say ‘you’. I mean both.

to do so you can be.

I remember the first time my father visited me in Manhattan. I hadn’t been there for more than three weeks. But according to my sister, it was enough time to put on weight. Even then, I knew that sometimes all one needed to feel secure was sight—that one thought the visible was enough to make a fair judgment of the state of another’s interior. But the truth is, one can’t have an accurate intuitive insight into another’s being if it is based solely on aesthetics. The vision I had of myself was unlike what others saw, but one thing was the same; we all had visions, and despite how or even why they varied, they all were involved with what was “out there”—a sense distinct from any other because its distance disallowed the intimate details unveiled when at close quarters. My appearance could not possibly speak for the content of who I am (I intentionally do not use ‘was’ because who I ‘am’ depends upon my past) but only—if at all—the quality. Any new self-awareness I may have had could only be accessed at a very private level. And I believe that was why it was unfortunate that a weekend visit was made significantly, although unsaid, for the purpose of shedding light on where I was with my disorder. It was also unfortunate that my better eating habits (I never did not eat, therefore when I say this, I mean to say my consistency with eating protein) did not seem to support the physique I greeted him with when he arrived. The past three weeks had been busy, I had been moving boxes up four flights of stairs, putting together an apartment and trying to settle into some reality of living in my dream, Manhattan. But I suppose when it comes to your health, especially when it is really on the line, there are no excuses and should be none. I am so often at odds with myself, and I think my writing is where this surfaces—this back and forth, this questioning and reasoning, language helps me make sense of my psychic text, and there is no disputing than it takes longer than you think. I remember just before my father left he took me to the Vitamin Shoppe. It is something I had been excited about doing, and that excitement can easily be likened to that of a child. It is embarrassing really—how I acted like a child—a young woman imprisoned by a mind she had when she was in her youth, small, undeveloped but still expecting to grow. And what I remember most from his visit was being in that store, the store I had been excited to go to, and suddenly not wanting to spend money on products I knew would make me look better, on vitamins I knew would help me be healthy. Just reminding myself of this experience shows me how difficult it is to write with absolute truth, to perform based on self-awareness, to live in favor of one’s self. It is hard for me to accept what I write, “The exterior does not correlate to the interior,” without struggling to admit how my actions have contradicted what I truly wish and feel I should be doing. I like to say that actions do not speak of one’s feelings—that once something is enacted, something genuine also goes missing—but I cannot help myself from seeing how, despite my awareness and sense, I resist my desires, and when I do “follow my heart” (yes, yes, a cliché) I also feel like I am punishing myself, like I should feel guilty, that there is going to be a consequence. And despite my ongoing philosophy that our exteriors do not illuminate any sort of interior truth—despite my frustration with even close family and friends when they thought my appearance did convey how I was mentally progressing or not—despite my hope all along that I was a smart girl, aware enough of the situation, that I knew "what this all was about", I so obviously did not know what I saw, I did not see what I needed to know and I did not know enough to be aware of what is unquestionably important. I wonder whether all my senses will ever merge and make me whole. It seems like that is always the goal—the reason people go to therapy because there is supposedly a way to be everything and yet, nothing that isn't sensible or not pure—supposedly once we see we are doing it wrong, we can learn to do it right. And because of this over-evaluation it sounds possible to be that single person you know you should. But also, once you sit back and just listen to yourself think that way, don't you come up for air and the first thing you want to say is, "It's all bullshit. It's all yet again another ideal. No one and nothing is perfect. Maybe the point of life is to accept that you're never going to get it all right, and so, try and be the best you can be at being human, at fucking up, at going against your heart because you'll never be happy just playing it safe."

Below is the piece this is in reference to.

Corned, like mice, in the cubby of the room my professor and I spoke of my pursuit for the plotless novel. We have been meeting for a year and a half now, but she probably knows more about my interior thought pattern—the struggles and triumphs I have faced as a young woman wanting desperately to write her life, to uncover treasures deep beneath the mess of a life—than anyone, ever. And with that said, she may believe in my potential for literary success more than anyone as well. She is a brilliant woman with a fragile figure and focus all her own. I believe she has a remarkable gift for finding the passages in hundred pages of text that are marked by beauty, and could easily have disappeared between the thousands of letters crawling across pages. Recently I found out that she was valedictorian, not to mention her study at Columbia and Oxford and her closet friend Derrida. Her mystique fascinates me. From our time together, there is no doubt I have given her access to my obsessions, the themes of my thoughts and alas, the secrets that reveal themselves—barely at all—on the last layer of my text. And the more she shares with me about myself, the more I believe she knows the story I will write—that I want to write, but have avoided—before I realize it is what I am writing. 

When I read my sister a new piece of writing—again spontaneous, raw, touched only once and created instinctively (?) impulsively (?)—I had not told her what my professor had told me a few days before; that she had no uncertainty that I can write stories. She said that as of now I write deeper into the story—what the story means once it is dissected, evaluated and internalized—and she believed that because I always start after the story and apart from the actions of the event, I will be able to write a better, more successful narrative because I know what it is all about—what the character feels and why. 

My sister finally spoke to me candidly. Saying that in the beginning of the piece I wrote her, she thought that I was using a voice that could be successfully used for my longer fictions/potential novel. But then she said the language became mentally exhaustive when I read it to her. This is something I was told last spring—that stories that were personal read like philosophical texts and because of that there was no space between the sentences that the reader could come up for a breath. This, too, ultimately frustrates me and was a challenge I worked on this summer in my writing course. A voice that was more natural and inviting, that in a way was more real to fiction. But then my sister said just what my professor had, but in words that hit home more, and were in a way more enticing for me as a writer. She made me realize that these texts that I have been writing are like a detailed outline, research and interview of what the character felt at every angle—an intense probing as to see what will motivate the character to act. I think that is what my work has been, a mental anguish to understand and know the psychology and philosophy of characters. It is what my blogs and meditative writing has been for—the larger story, the actual story, the story I am bound to write. So often I wish I could hand over everything I have written—every fragment—every post—every digression from action—and be told what it all has been truly about, what is the story I need to tell. 

i have filled innumerable notebooks with phrases to be used when i have found the true story, the one story to which all these phrases refer. but i have never yet found that story. and i begin to ask, are there stories? -the waves, virginia woolf.

Something Can Be Made of Silence

For him, my place was not familiar. It did not even seem like something he may have known, nor something he could try to remember. His being here (where I presently am) was the first time, of many times, I instinctively hoped. Although, I must make your aware, how instinct races beneath the conscious, and therefore, this hope could not be separated from the blood it is mixed in and which keeps me alive, pursuing life. Does that mean it means more or matters most when I figure who it is I am? You must understand, that not even I was aware of what I wanted then. It is only now, that I have begun to see myself acting and think of why I chose to be that certain character I was being. Now let us go there, September seventh, the fall of my final year. 

I imagine not far beyond reason. And I tell you this, expecting you can now trust me and believe my mind was seeing realms of possible realities, confirmed likely by logic. So there he is, I imagine, enclosed in that uncomfortable space that elevators are consistently in the presence of. 

Do you ever wonder how that it is? That every time you treat yourself to an elevator ride, kindly giving your legs a rest break, you become more preoccupied with what a nuisance your body is, just standing there soliciting nothing usable—skin and smell, oh and that god awful sight of yourself that you would rather not be associated with. Are people staring at you or their own hopeless figure frozen in quietude and mirrored between the frame of the sliding door? How we wish we would remember to take the stairs, instead of subjecting ourselves to otherness. But how dependable we are of falling victim to our games of self-consciousness—always purposefully forgetting there are routes for avoiding human contact, that awkward tension when we do not know if our want is another’s want. Perhaps, we are unwilling to travel the distance taken by the unanimous. It could be that, unlike “them”—the nameless, faceless, beings of nonbeing—we want to be seen and consumed, a want that wills us into sharing space, even though we would rather cease to exist during that elevator ride, than continue feeling like we stand alone in the presence of one or many.

He stepped onto the carpeted hallway of the seventh floor. His body two doors down from where I eat, sleep and try to live. Breathing six floors of air out, while the elevator continued its advancement in spite of him, he thought now in the absence of others, That was not so bad. And in reality, it hadn’t been, but it takes a moment after the moment being reflected on to feel how weightless affects are. Moments tick in time, and we forget the moment we were in, or at the very least, the majority of what we were thinking mattered. 

I answer his knock by opening the door and pulling him closer into the space I have tried to make reflect my present being. Everything goes spilling forth into his eyes: my face aged by the three years of our absence, the apartment’s scent like my very own second skin and my voice which speaks for my presence but, also, reminds him of the distance between now and then. A distance consumed by darkness that eventually comes to light, which at that point is where it stops and some place other starts. A distance that spans time, a time made valuable not by sight but by the resonance of speech, where my absent voice sings a repetitious note of a time that ceased being, the collection of moments before the second I said, “We are over”. Ah, but now I must see that my language had no strength and my voice did not keep its reason, for he is back and it is all because of me. 

“You came!” I say inside his embrace, but I know I felt nothing, not even warmth as his body pushed through mine. He holds a glass I had given him moments into his arrival, and through it I can see his hand trembling. With a gesture of immediacy, I pour in wine so a substance thick with color can fill the transparency of our unsettling engagement. It is obvious we share a similar unknowingness of the reason we are together again, and so I comment on the weather. Yet, in a rush to avoid either of our interiors, I forget how meaningless exteriors are. “It has been one of my favorite types of day,” I reveal with a confidence that seems removed from myself, almost like I am impersonating someone I think I should be. Overcast, he laughs not sure if he should. You have always been so facetious! I feel as if I am standing in the same situation I had left us in—small, supercilious, like his presence is inspired by the need to teach me how to think. “Overcast is a fine way to be,” I answer, this time taking total control of myself. 

I notice there is nothing to be said, which makes me think how the perfect silence would be perfect to have, to find, to create. He speaks immediately after my thought, just as I expect he will, since he always had—an effort that succeeds at being just as successful at refraining from having to hear me, and wanting to listen to me. Aren’t you going to introduce me? No one knows who he is and lets face it, we are in Manhattan, no one cares either. We do not exist unless we have a name. Not true, I think of many I have only seen but never formally met. Well, I must have a name if I have been talked about. “Who says I have told anyone about you?” What’s got you? He looks at me like he is looking at someone I have never been. The weather? I am only being playful. “It comes with the territory.” Well, I’m a guest. “And you have never been playful.” Hey—he makes my voice turn silent, my words lose their meaning—I love you. Spaces come between his words, so it sounds like he has intentionally hinted toward fragments of being—nouns without purpose. 

Hours lost their importance, as the night owned us both. I became drunk because it was the only emotion I found available in my apartment. The only emotion I wanted to indulge in; something separate from myself, I could blame my behavior on, if need be. Within this place of mind, our breaking up seemed to loose its’ meaning, and it was as if the only thing that had any life was our bodies approval of the other. 

I fought nothing. I was so over it: the act of being between a barrier, the art of caring. If my mind had been present I am sure it would have responded just as my body had—logically, conveniently—judging off of facts, “My body has slept in his before, there is no mistaking, a heart can only experience what it has not known.” 

And so I felt nothing of it, when he bent my body in two—taking advantage of its halves. Mouths upon the others gaping hole, darkness tongues can go exploring through. The moment between a beating heart, I waited for his tongue to move, to trace circles of hope inside my mouth, to charge my body with life. I waited for something I expected we all are responsible for, that we all can give, and found myself waiting for longer than I could before becoming weak.

His hand pressed into the muscle of my shoulder, while his other closed the lids of my sight and, prowling, wrapped around my neck, until I became tighter and tighter, my breath less and less. I went along with him, thinking I had to—pretending his perversity had never been a secret, like it was a direction my body knew by heart, as if it were the reason we came together. 

With my body shaped as an arch, I imagine he thought I appeared like the character for the role, like I was meant to be on my knees. I stare into the impossible sky, a canvas colored by nothingness, and think of the message he is telling me—a conversation between sexes—and wonder whether he is listening to me as my body speaks. Loud slaps against my ass, nothing similar to an applause, and I feel nothing of it. Not until now do I think how easy it is to go missing in the darkness, when the night owns us all; how easy it is to play your part, to pretend to be an expert at what you do not know because it is embarrassing not to know. And so I act like I have done what he needs a hundred times before, as if in silence we share the same gesture, that we depend upon the same wants and needs. 

On that bed—that bed which is mine—I respond as if it is his, feel like he does not talk to me because he does not know my name, that he will keep me only during this night and then I will have been had. But it is not until now that I can liken it to those elevator rides, the consistent hope they present you with for the moment when you can exit where you are and be where you had been waiting to be. That distance after the moment defined by profound silence, where you thought only to yourself despite the body beside you, where staring at you is some other you that you felt you were but did not want to know. The distance after he has come, where hovering over you is a body you have seen before, but with mouths holding in the silence, you feel you could never know. So you come to show something can be made of the silence, but it is not until the moment after speech that your secret is revealed to him: “I hadn’t a name to say because I never knew you so you would exist. 

eugene mcguiness by way of uk.

soul seeking mind: a poem.

I wonder whether what matters means anything. Or is what we think have nothing to do with us, only a voice we trust exists and have decided to believe in once in a while? A philosophical poet we claim ourselves to be, just so we feel we are responsible for something greater that has been or is preoccupied with being produced. This thing above our bodies, that we cannot touch nor feel, but think can be found within us—what is it, this mind, that I wish I could feel matters? I grow larger, thicker even, with frustration—an effect of this knowingness of myself being, despite having a life in reality where I do not see myself as or for what I am. Although, I am, showing up somewhere, a breath spreading on a mirror and in it is someone present I cannot catch, someone I cannot pass through without breaking through things, less abstract than I. Blood before the heart beats is a complexity that perplexes every listening ear, but I tell them all the same, how I feel it is what defines me as often as time lasts. It will be forever, until I see some other kind of life. Imagine that! I barely can see it happening, but maybe all I have to do is continue after now, and maybe then my mind will have arrived at the distance it knows it needs to go. Even though my body does not feel it is moving with my mind, does not know whether they are partners in love.

my thoughts hadn't an intention.

It was morning for me, for others it was just another time in the day. A day that had been waiting to be started—to be opened—so the world could move through it, shuffle their feet, tare apart the grass and let the hours fall behind them, like light betraying a shadow’s back, barely projecting its presence at all. Devastating, is it not? How time easily objectives itself into roles of being and nothingness. Moments significant within the walls of an instant—a heartbeat’s repetition of now, now, now—when one needs its presence most. And then, just as our barrier begins to fall forward, we pick up our feet and run from the corner in our heart that felt safe—where feeling felt comfortable and effortless. You hear him gaining speed before your eyes can commit to seeing him turn and go. But you scream after, for your instinct is to believe a voice will penetrate through a man’s refuge—that confine where he seals silence shut. Do not question this shelter, he built the structure himself. And his heart will let what it needs slip beneath its door, for it is beyond the reason of his hands. Like a constant reminder—a frame of film purposefully placed on pause—your voice will resonate between the walls of his mind, if it is you that is his moment, the moment that will last. But you do not believe me, simply because you cannot trust your truth. He runs away from reason, circling time, so you cannot take one way to find him. His body reduced by distance, making you feel like you could hold him if you had him again—carry him in the closure of your control. But your feelings have not made you think, and therefore you do not question this likelihood. You are tired and time turns sleepy with you. Two mouths open in the night, the air is lipless, so you lay alone. Your last thought is your first thought. And if only you could have remembered the day you saw him and the future at once, that space that caused you to whisper, “One day his tongue will stop tracing my skin with hope”, you would have known the memory between the beginning and the ending, the moment presence stood in place. You fall between darkness and light, the moment hovering over a dream, a night away from the day being an afterthought. Sleep exhales a breath of permanence over your lens, heavy with forgetfulness. But sleep only lasts for hours and then you are awake with sobriety, when what you need is time to forgive. Time, you think, begins again in the morning but in the light what will the day mean?

damien jurado

this last one is a cover of sheets, but just as good.

please listen to damien jurado's new releases from his album, caught in the trees. he reminds me of pedro the lion. i discovered him through this website's podcasts. download them here because, well, why not indulge on something free from itunes? 

and to quote my sister, "you must be in a different place, a pretty good place of sensibility, to listen to this type of stuff and not feel sad." this vibe places me in a trance of "happiness" and i hope it can do the same for you.

clarice lispector

Around him, an emptiness blew, in which a man finds himself when he is going to create. 

Desolated, he provoked the great solitude. And, like an old man who has not learned to read, 

he measured the distance that separated him from the word 

-Clarice Lispector, The Apple in the Dark.

Clarice’s writing occupies this unlikely space, the immeasurable: the distance that separates us from the words. It’s the measure of a void, of an abyss that opens itself in the infinitesimal instant in which the words acquire sense. That’s why it feels as if she is writing right in front of us, in order to reveal to us, in its total nakedness, in its pungent abandonment, the act of writing itself.

this is everything, if not, the only thing.

confusing genres

last night, the professor said that serious writing has nothing to do with the writer, that the only thing that matters is the reader. i can agree that novice writers write, to an extent, for themselves. they may not know why they write, and it may be the last of their concerns, but they do and feel they need to for themselves. personally, my writing is (and use to be more) self-indulgent - in the sense that it is vague, evasive and details are placed because they are a personal attachment to a past that is never explained in my writing. for example, a dreamer may wake up at seven. why seven? she may touch her face having felt snow sliding down her cheek, only to be surprised that it is her own tears and that she is lying on a bed where snow can't fall into. why snow? why tears instead of snow? why the two mentions at once? perhaps she wakes abruptly, paralyzed with fear that she is entrapped in a net. why a net? and then, she discovers she is resting in a hammock, but does not remember why or how she got there. why a hammock? why the absence of memory? these are all choices and these are also all chances that a writer takes. 

details come to me not after consideration but because details are the only thing that comes to me when i think. details (the number seven, snow in the morning, a hammock...) are what comes before the scene of memory. perhaps it is not the moment i invent, but the moment which presents me with the chance to exaggerate upon a memory. this could be what makes me a beginning author, sure. but even after development, i hope i never have to write for the reader alone. i hope i always write because the act of literature should be a dialogue, a moment when time is being shared and experience exchanged. this is where i think authors fall short: they write having found a story to tell, a story that will seduce a reader, that will charm, that will suspend disbelief, but they write driven by the story and they forget completely that they must live as the character, they must feel the choices the characters have to decide upon that shape the story, they must be within the interior. <the most antagonizing feeling as a reader is when you feel for or feel before the character does. authors shy away from the commitment to becoming the life in which they create. they forget the interior city (the nerves, the pulses, the digressions, the fragments, the spaces in between rising and falling actions, the pulse of the event) and they become too focused on the exterior city. why can't authors be, at the very least, encouraged to write within a life; instead of writing on a life?
i want to write a novel where the the character's body falls open and exposes the hidden manifestations of a life that is internalized, what those removed from us cannot see. and then, when i want to see a life, when i want to watch a story be told i will either go outside and travel the streets or i will turn on my television. 

• Importantly, I want to stop falling back on myself to write within. I want my main focus to be another's life so separate from my own imaginings. A few days ago I read some comment that someone had written me a few years back. Of course, the few criticisms will stand out from the praise. And maybe that is something to be thankful for. The comment was along the lines of thinking "my personal philosophy" was being the beautiful face sitting beside a window at a cafe, staring out into the world, while others walked by trying to look into who I was. She went on to say that I analyzed that behavior and that struggle. Then she went on to assume that I lived off my parents financially and that I should think about getting a job, struggling and falling into the city. When I read this comment/criticism/advice a few days ago, it did sting a bit. There were the small reasons, like she was devaluing struggles that did not mirror the "I eat a few times a week-live in the park-trying to find an apartment where I can sleep on the floor with five other people". I do think there is something genuine and not artificial in struggles that are small but that plague an individual for a lifetime, stunt their growth, inhibit them. But that was not really where the comment stung. It stung because I was born into a life that has been to my advantage, I have had to create struggles, find challenges that were not imposed upon me. And because of that I worry all the time that I have no story to tell. Friends laugh at me and want to slap me around every time I say such things - claiming that I, too, am discrediting my own past. Last year in a conference with a professor, she told me she believed I was avoiding my story - that I was avoiding feeling what my life is overwhelmed by (trite or not, it is real). I am sure there is more truth in all those possibilities, than not. But overall, I just want to get away from myself. I want to be in situations where I am not given a choice. I want to live another's life, so I can forget any importance or pressure of telling my own. Dream? To graduate, the summer of 09' go back to Africa and "help" the underprivileged children. I want to experience not having a choice about food, when you eat, what you eat, how much you eat. I want to see a child cry for food with the hope that I will never, ever think about pushing away food. So I can feel sick about ever choosing to say no to certain foods, to starve, to look disadvantaged. And then, I want to write about that, about them, about me after them. 

One Cannot See His Thought.

Fragment: a presence half accepted because that which is absent is more present in the mind than what physically appears on scene. Fragment: a part of what makes a product whole, absolute, more of what it already is. Fragment: a becoming. Fragment: a potential for something more definite. Fragment: recognized for being less definite, but more distinct. Fragment: a curiosity inspired by mystery. Fragment: a stream expressing people, places or things, actions, states or occurrences, attributes, modifications or details chosen and placed one after the other on a line in time that does not complete an inscribed moment or has been erased from the materiality of memory. Fragment: a thoughtful spitting out of scraps but swallowing, like a black hole, of knowledge or mindful material. Fragment: to be left with less than what one expected to have. Fragment: what one has thought to know, seen to know, remembered to know. Fragment: the process of elimination. Fragment: the liminal space between forgiving and forgetting. Fragment: the liminal space between thought and speech. Fragment: the liminal space. Fragment: all one thinks he wants the other to know. Fragment: all one knows to tell, to share, to reveal. Fragment: an opening up and a shutting down. “One knows not all of his self.” A fragment? “One knowingly thinks not to share all of his self.” A fragment? I must keep thinking to know some things of everything. I will let you know. 

My eyes looked out the window, but not my mind. It was held up elsewhere, behind the present physical sight, which the skin of my eyes was covered with. Perhaps my mind came across a wish wafting between the boundaries of its brain. If it did, I regret having not had my eyes to see the memory of a future moment. I need thought only for that, not eyes. Insight but not sight. Possibly soon though I will see what my mind had been thinking, for a wish is in the process of becoming closer to the now: a moment in time I was imagining when my eyes looked out the window and I thought of nothing close to what they were seeing. I am sure it was not that there was nothing to see. But rather a void of what I wished was happening immediately in time. I cannot remember the hour, but perhaps it was nighttime and there was nothing but thick black air hovering outside the window. It is possible; anything is. It may have been a black hole in the sky. That would explain why I have no impression of the experience—to my knowledge, the moment would have been emptied into the deep dark hole, leaving me after with no memory. It sounds sensible. But then again, I do not know. My mind and eyes did not show up together and one must have both present to be left with everything closest to reality. I think so much is true. I will tell you one thing I am completely certain of though, if I had seen any stars, I would have wished to collect them to glue to my ceiling so the black hole in the sky could not swallow them. I was not thinking at the time I saw stars.