running away from the body.

Last night, in the kitchen my friend's mom asked me what I wanted to portray. I said, the emptiness. There is something romantic about it, even something ideal. In times of distance, between two a profound silence can be heard. I want to catch those compartmentalized thoughts left lactating on the tongue. When I said I wanted to write the emptiness—I meant I have been wanting to portray the solitary presence. Between an engagement I need others to be vulnerable. I want to read that. I want to see it happen. I want us shown and heard raw, uninhibited, closest to the instant of a thought. From the romance, I want to empty out the sentimentality. 

However without the sentimentality, people fear there will be a lessening of feelings and that this will make the fiction and romance seem empty. People want the ideal, not the real and never the normalcy. But I like this. I prefer this theme to write upon. I want to capture the core. I want to make that captivating. I believe we are always distanced. We cannot become my other (as in my ideal projection and dream being) nor can I become an other (a partner, a friend, a stranger), no matter how hard I imagine their situation or myself as him. We can assume, but that is us trying to become. We can never truly look out through his eyes and think in his head. Oh, but I would love to be so close.

These days I eat chocolate, stand sideways in the mirror, watch myself enlarge and try without trying (as in have it be a mentality integrated into a new lifestyle) to train myself to be accepting, not resistant to the change or spiteful of the desires that motivate my behavior. Most of my daytime hours has to be spent—especially now—writing, reviewing, reading, situated in thought. However, I feel stale. My mom comes into my bedroom as I am writing a poetry paper that is long since due and asks me what type of sub I want. I have been good. I have eaten them when they are bought. There are no crumbs on the plate. They are delicious. But now she says that she notices how inactive I am as a result of all this writing. How am I suppose to take that? It is true and as result, I resist reading into the statement and discovering her intention. I miss my running. I miss the sports. The competition with others, instead of being solely against my self. I always feel trapped in my body. I have always felt someone inside trying to gain distance from this skin, this shell. In my video art days, I always dreamt of having multiple large projections of myself running—different angles—behind the eyes and beneath the gaze—I wanted words to speed up while another stream of conscious was slowed. I wanted others to see how quick I was going, while simultaneously hearing how my thoughts matched my physical speed and sometimes outran it. I still want to do this project. I still want my self to out run my body. I know that isn’t the answer. I know this mentality is prolonging things.  

But I have multiple mentalities. And another is I cannot wait till all my applications are over on January 15, so I can run—run faster than I have in years.