Psychosex.

April 16, 2000

By LISA JENNIFER SELZMAN

THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF SEX Stories of the Intimate Relationship Between Therapist and Patient. By Susie Orbach. Scribner, $24.

ver wonder what your therapist is really thinking? In ''The Impossibility of Sex,'' the London psychotherapist Susie Orbach describes the impressions that go through her mind during treatment sessions; she gives a human face to the stereotyped portrait of the distant, passive analyst by showing that, on the contrary, she is deeply affected by her patients. She details the therapeutic process through seven composite patients drawn from her 20 years of practice, among them a seductive male chef, a self-mutilating businesswoman and a lesbian couple. She dissects these clinical ''stories'' to let the reader in on her thoughts at significant points along the way, admitting with impressive candor to feelings of sexual attraction, arrogance, favoritism and even failure. Orbach believes that patterns of interaction between therapist and client often recapitulate aspects of the client's early painful experiences and are thus the key to healing. Her physical and emotional responses to those who come to her for help supply information that propels the clinical process forward. Orbach, the author of ''Fat Is a Feminist Issue,'' has a knack for making psychological material accessible and engrossing. The fact that the patients and their circumstances are fictionalized -- albeit for reasons of confidentiality -- dilutes somewhat the power of these ''case studies,'' and the titillating and misleading title cheapens Orbach's intent. The prevailing theme of this artful book is not the impossibility of sex, but rather the possibility of transcending violation and loneliness.

Eye Sea

I partake in the visible; I see and I am being seen. But I cannot see the medium which brings this reversible relation about. The vision of the self is a fold or cavity. That is, I can see the world around me, but I cannot see the point from which I am looking. I can only be aware of myself as seeing through the visibility of things around me. They meet my eyes in such a way that they, in a manner of speaking, look upon me. Vision, therefore, is always inhabited by a fundamental narcissism. The thickness of the flesh is constituted as a narcissistic moment. The flesh is the necessary depth which makes meaning possible. It is the weight partaking of our daily practices - the way we socialize, feel and live - the density which makes us engaged in poetry, music, art, and each other. The world around us is illuminated by a light in which we ourselves can see and be seen. But the "flesh" itself cannot be seen. The way we perceive the world, therefore, presumes the suppression of an invisible other, a radical form of alterity making its imprint on our corporeal rootedness.

Elemental Passions by Luce Irigaray and the article Crossing Lovers: Luce Irigaray's Elemental Passions.

How we get here.

I’m the type of person convinced the exterior determines my interior. To be clear, my environment greatly influences how I feel, and what I feel controls the moment I imagine is my reality. It’s probably the reason I become consumed by my present situation; why I can’t accept it as temporary and become comforted and content that it too will pass. Because I know better. I can’t trick myself into thinking I will change—that all of a sudden, I can be the sort of person who is involved, engaged in the environment and then leaves unaffected, with no impression. When I am consumed by a time I can’t get enough of, then well, I don’t want to accept that fate either—that I will have fulfilling feelings, yet their source will be temporary and I will be left to pretend I am stronger than I am. I know this sort of attitude affects my relationships with others—I come and go. I forget nothing, but I am only present when I want to be. It’s selfish and maybe I wish I could be more available, but time consumes me and I can’t be everywhere because when I go, I want to stay until I am affected. Maybe it’s true that I have my idea of who, what, where will bring about meaning to me and off this judgment, I seek out what will impact me. I’m not good with small stuff. I fear the things I want to say are never small. But it is my insecurity that I can’t be casual from the start. It’s just what I’ve been conditioned to—the past. I always assumed everyone spoke candidly, but this year others have made me see my situations differently. Somehow others feel I allow them to say what they have thought they shouldn’t. Be it confusion, addiction, the story when it’s not decorated, filtered. I embrace this. And I don’t know what to say other than these interactions are where I see we have purpose. Whenever someone speaks, I feel as though they are letting themselves think around me. It’s all I’ve ever known or received from others. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so bad at casuality—wasn’t “so serious”. I’m sure I would do more. And like the people outside my window, I would scream, have my voice be music to the entire city. Am I too composed? Too conscious? As much as I hate to admit because I fear dependency, all I can reason is the other brings sides of your self forth and due to the other, you can surprise yourself with your many faces. Everyone I maintain contact with affects me more than they think. They make me live in ways I wouldn’t on my own.

The messages were silly that I received. That I am distant. Have a life of my own. Too popular, and hard to reach. Does one never think of the possibilities? That silence may be the result of trying to find something of comparable value to say. That an intimidating presence was the veil protecting the self from being fully realized? That distance was not caused by the body being with some other, but actually being so very far away?

Aside from sheer procrastination, what even led into any of this rambling? My books. Right. If I were to look to the right of my environment… my bedroom…there must be three hundred books…I don’t know whether they stir sensuality within me or anxiety…reminders to always be at work, consuming lines…but whatever, to my right, a pile of books: Sartre—Being and Nothingness, Bataille—Inner Experience, Bachelard—Poetics of Reverie, Maso—Ava, Laing—Politics of Experience, Foucault—Politics of Truth, Collobert—Notebooks 1956-1978, Brown—Love’s Body, Lispector—Stream of Life, Thomas—Thinking About Memoir, Hoffman—Beyond Silence, Hamsun—Hunger, Blais—Angel of Solitude, Agualusa—The Book of Chameleons, Cartarescu—Nostalgia, Le Clezio—The Interrogation, Barthes—The Pleasure of the Text, Tabucchi—It’s Getting Later All the Time. And that is only a single pile, but still does it say something about me? What I am bringing in, what is coding my mind, what I want to be effected by? Could it be why I lack imagination? I slept with a guy, woke to him acting like we had been a couple for a year, took me by complete surprise, he left for work, I dreamt like nothing had happened, woke with a missed call from him, messages during the day, very taken aback, phone call after work, he said he had read my writing, where? how? what!, in your bedroom, framed by the door, oh no that was terribly depressing highschool dramatics, no it wasn’t but then I went on the internet and saw you had a blog…very interesting…I’ve never been one to read, but that shouldn’t matter.

The line really put me on pause. I hadn’t thought of it like that. Maybe what I did didn’t matter, but still if it was so much of what my daily life revolved around, shouldn’t we somehow even share a liking for words? It ended up being an interesting string of events. My sister met him, unintentionally, and proceeded to tell my mom her judgments and say she wouldn’t take my word on any of my relations. But I thought she was missing the point—their purpose. Two people don’t have to end up in a serious relationship to qualify the time as worthy, substantial. But, of course, this doesn’t make much sense to someone who wasn't wanting or hoping for something from sex, other than the sex and/or a continuous series of phone calls after. For me what is important is discovering something within the moment. Taking something from the time—it prevents me from regretting anything either. Maybe I was always trying to write a story based on someone, around us. The guy I am referring to isn’t my match, but was that even what I was looking for? My desire for him forced me to be more aggressive, upfront. He showed me how simple a night could be—ice cream and a movie. Something I haven’t let myself indulge in…together. When I saw he had put all 20 sticks into the perfume oil, he confirmed that foolishness really can be charming. Sure maybe our conversations weren’t intimate or “deep”, but then again, I’ve never slept closer to another body in my life. Maybe he’ll never tell me about this “relationship” he is in, but maybe we all are entitled to our weaknesses. Like when we were separating on the street, and I said something about his Levis, and he said he wanted to skip work because he thought knowing his jeans meant I was beginning to know him. And he liked that, and I only liked to watch someone get dressed, and well, that’s when I saw he wore Levis. I think some people aren’t satisfied unless they receive everything. They can’t frame the fragments. I might not be getting into Graduate School, so maybe I’ve fallen short of my dream, and sure I haven’t been able to write in months, but I still have what I’ve written. And what I’ve written is not a result of a dream, but the people I know…references to them dropped in places to fill stories with color, so the fragments mean something beyond themselves. My sister may have felt otherwise about him, but maybe even twins look to others to fulfill different places, of they do. And for me, his memory can be traced through at least four pieces. Pieces that maybe didn’t get me into Graduate School, but got me closer to my dream.

I wonder whether any situation will ever leave me feeling light?

Canopied Purity

With head risen
Tongue traces meaning loosely
Dangling above masculinity.

Somehow you
Follow my feminine gesture
Wipe my lips and say,

“I feel tired, too.”

Try to fall away from each other
And can’t.

Instead hopelessly bring our selves
Closer to coming into darkness.

Curling toes
In hand,
Your grasp makes me
Too wounded to move.

Skin smothering skin
I hope to give
Weight to this lightness
Breath, a calamitous cushion.

Fingers insane on my skin
Become mad in the middle.

I am too dreamless to be here.

But

“We need each other now.”

Your lips pushing apart mine
Keep me from going
Make me watch downward.

Before taking your body from mine
You press deeper
Deceiving skin’s opacity
Obscuring shallowness.

Will we be thought pure
If we seem
Intimate at eye level,
I think this is the hope.

I've got my mind made up.

If you're interested in d/ling the song, check out the Breakbot Remix.

Love?

If Zizek has to be the one to say it, than by all means, say it so others will live like so.

Zizek

ZzZ

The Fragile Absolute, Zizek

So where, precisely, did Marx go wrong with regard to surplus-value? One is tempted to search for an answer in the key Lacanian distinction between the object of desire and surplus-enjoyment as its cause. Henry Krips evokes the lovely example of the chaperone in seduction: the chaperone is an ugly elderly lady who is officially the obstacle to the direct goal– object (the woman the suitor is courting); but precisely as such, she is the key intermediary moment that effectively makes the beloved woman desirable– without her the whole economy of seduction would collapse. Or, take another example from a different level: the lock of curly blond hair, that fatal detail of Madeleine in Hitchcock’s Vertigo. When, in the love scene in the barn towards the end of the film, Scottie passionately embraces Judy refashioned into the dead Madeleine, during their famous 360-degree kiss, he stops kissing her and withdraws just long enough to steal a look at her newly blonde hair, as if to reassure himself that the particular feature which transforms her into the object of desire is still there… Crucial here is the opposition between the vortex that threatens to engulf Scottie (the ‘vertigo’ of the film’s title, the deadly Thing) and the blonde curl that imitates the vertigo of the Thing, but in a miniaturized, gentrified form.

This curl is the objet petit a which condenses the impossible-deadly Thing, serving as its stand-in and thus enabling us to entertain a livable relationship with it, wihtout being swallowed up by it. As Jewish children put it when they play gently aggressive games: ‘Please, bite me, but not too hard…’ [? I must be Jewish as I enjoy these games]. This is the difference between ‘normal’ sexual repression and fetishism: in ‘normal’ sexuality, we think that the detail-feature that serves as the cause of desire is just a secondary obstacle that prevents our direct access to the Thing– that is, we overlook its key role; while in fetishism we simply make the cause of desire directly into our object of desire: a fetishist in Vertigo would not care about Madeleine, but simply focus his desire directly on the lock of hair; a fetishist suitor would engage directly with the chaperone and forget about the lady herself, the official goal of his endeavours.

So there is always a gap between the object of desire itself and its cause, the mediating feature or element that makes this object desirable. What happens in melancholy is that we get the object of desire deprived of its cause. For the melancholic, the object is there but what is missing is the specific intermediary feature that makes it desirable. For that reason there is always at least a trace of melancholy in every true love: in love, the object is not deprived of its cause; it is, rather, that the very distance between object and cause collapses. This, precisely, is what distinguishes love from desire: in desire, as we have just seen, cause is distinct from object; while in love, the two inexplicably coincide– I magically love the beloved one for itself, finding in it the very point from which I find it worthy of love. (20-21)

The Opacity of Desire

When the analysand speaks in a psychoanalytic session, Lacan suggests that it is necessary to bracket the subject who seems to speak and to ask, "'Who is speaking?' when it is the voice of the unconscious that is at issue. For this reply cannot come from the subject if he does not know what he is saying, or even if he is speaking, as the entire experience of analysis has taught us" (Écrits 299). -Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflections in 20th-Century France by Judith Butler.

This actually got me to laugh. It's genius. It's obvious. All throughout reading Freud, I've never quite understood this unconscious speaker. If one is speaking is he not doing so on behalf of consciousness? Anyway, I'm meeting a professor in thirty, and have been trying to delve into my rationale finally: The Desire to be within The Other. I am way behind, and this is half the cause of my anxiety, but I think if I can allow myself to achieve a healthier state of mind, than I can become fascinated and immersed within my study. I SHOULD BE enjoying this, since after all it's engaging with my obsession, this question I will never able to resolve. Just as I let myself fall into a troubled mind, I need to let myself get healthy. As for fiction, the only work I should be reading (personally and professionally) is Woolf and Faulkner. However it goes without saying that I buy loads of literature weekly, knowingly having no time to delve in; buuuut, I am absolutely impressed with this novel I just bought by Antonio Tabucchi.

Awake My Soul - Mumford & Sons

04-20-2006

It's hard knowing how much I was lying then as a result of denial or had I always believed in myself and therefore, expected the best? I say it's hard knowing because after this entry I went from 115 to 84. I do remember the times I refer to well though. I remember when I said for the first time aloud I had been taking pills off and on for years. I was at dinner with Stephen, my mom and dad at The Setai in Miami. After completely altering the menu's ingredients to my liking and many glasses of red wine, I reached over to tell my mother. I remember looking over and seeing how engaged my father and Stephen were, how special the night felt, like we were one family and I remember believing everything would be okay, would only become better. I remember that day I woke up in Boston, how bright that small room of mine was and how I didn't reach over to swallow anything. I remember promising it would be the last time I allowed myself to diet. I remember thinking everything would be better, believing I would be healthy and that would be okay.

come out to a few of the closest people about this "huge concern" in respect to my sudden extreme weight loss. stares immediately began & startled voices sounded in my ears. i knew i wouldn't really be able to play it off. if no one thought i had a problem before, there was no way they wouldn't think there was a problem now. so ultimately, how would i go out for meals and not have anyone believing i was doing drugs or throwing up? the last night i was home, after a few drinks in me, i finally said it. for the first time -- to anyone. for the last five years i've had a terrible problem. i never thought i had an eating disorder, but i openly said i had an image perception disorder which i believed to be far worse than anorexia or bulimia. i wouldn't allow myself to sink to such levels of that. i thought they were weak - awfully & truthfully weak displays of an individual. it's all been a battle, but i know that if it wasn't for the last dreadful years, i wouldn't be who i am. i would be a free spirit without a care in the world; perhaps with no depth. when i gained all the weight 5 years ago, i felt out of control. and for five years i have been fixated on who i was then. the absolute center of attention. a complete free spirit. never aware of the perceptions others had on me. i was strong, i was confident, i was everything i wanted to be -- there were no limits. i was climbing the latter in the modeling industry & yet, i ate my heart out & i didn't understand why anyone could ever worry about their image. i remember it so well. and then, then it was all taken from me. the life was sucked out of me & for the first time in my life, i felt out of control. i realized that some how your image does define you somehow, some way in the eyes of others. i began hearing the betrayal in (even) friends voices about my new look. my chubby cheeks, the way my stomach rolled. it pained me. i had to leave the agency & leave a dream behind. soon enough, i decided i had to cut out junk food. start off small & results were made.. but nothing really. one day, i stumbled upon pills. i saw someone else taking them & saw what a difference they made & that how when she gave them up, she went back to her old way. i began smuggling the pills & they worked. every time i ate, i didn't feel that bad.. because i was taking these miracle pills. i took them religiously & at times not so much because of how expensive they were, the guilt, & my own natural worry for my health. so for five years, i was off & on with them. i hid them & if i was ever confronted (which some how managed to only be twice) i would find them in the trash bin & take as many as i could before anyone saw me. but after five years, my body wasn't responding to them. i was terribly depressed about it. i thought about my weight every other minute, i swear you, every other minute. i wanted to shatter the glass that let me see myself. i knew i was capable of all my dreams, mentally, but physically i couldn't believe in myself & so i let dreams decay with time. but the pills gave me hope. when i came to boston my happiness was so momentary. i felt the most out of control of myself than ever. i couldn't control my environment & i felt like if i wasn't growing intellectually & insightfully, then i mine as well work from the outside in. and so i began experimenting by taking three different pills at the same time. everyone always made comments about how healthy i ate.. condescending remarks & all i could think was, I AM EATING give me that credit because if i wasn't i'd look the way i wanted & then i'd feel the way i did & then i could be who i had been planned to be. i fell asleep starving, i'd work out everyday, i'd have to drink myself to sleep to not think about the hunger all the pills were causing me, & i'd wake up & race out to breakfast - take down bowls & bowls of oatmeal. it was a cycle of thought, addiction, and guilt. spring break it hit me that i had to stop this addiction. i couldn't go on living like this. i'd kill my heart & there was no results as much as i'd like to hope for. i don't know how i've done it, but somehow five years later (almost 6) i woke up & didn't allow myself to reach for a bottle. i knew what i was risking.. what every pill popper worries; that without the pills i'd gain pound after pound & just swell up. well, somehow it has been just the opposite. people think i'm disengrating right in front of their eyes & yes, maybe it has been a bit shocking, i don't know. it's hard to explain it, but after years of pills - my body going up & down - my metabolism racing & telling me how badly i needed food - well now my appetite is very, very small. the smallest meal satisifies all my senses. fruits... vegetables... spices. i just love it, but with that comes questioning. i wish people wouldn't worry though. i'm finally off pills & now i'm just taking the consequences of them. but i've never been happier. it is almost like a spiritual clensing. i'm in control now, not a pill. and i feel like i may be able to do just what i had to leave off. having to come clean about these things is no fun. admitting that i was so weak behind everyone's back doesn' feel good, naturally. everyone feels dumb when i was clearly the child. but now everyone's watching me, forcing food down my throat when my body tells me i'm fine with what i have eaten. my mom wants me to get blood work done & everyone wants weight put back on. but i just want everyone to not worry. for the first time i'm happy, alive, and unreliant. i believe in myself. & at the same time, it needs to be understood that putting on the weight that i was unhappy with won't solve anything. why try & make me do pills again? as long as i am not depriving my body & am eating. as long as i feel good & as long as i am not depriving myself of life then i can breathe.. for the first time.

i want everyone to know the dangers you potentially face by relying so heavily on something & someone. my mouth bled terribly, i lost no weight, worked out like mad, & thought about weight every other minute. i urge you all to love yourself. i've always be envious. believe in who you are & never let yourself depend on anyone but the mind, if at all.

If I don't retire my pen, I hope to say more.

My dear friend! Shall I give you an analogy? It is the same with love. A young man's heart is entirely attached to a girl; he spent every hour of the day with her, wastes all his strength, all his fortune, in order to prove to her at every moment that he is wholly devoted to her. Should a philistine then enter the picture, a man of some responsible position, and say to him:

"My dear young man, it is natural to love, but you must love only in a sensible way. Organize your day; some hours for work and some - the hours of relaxation - for your sweetheart. Calculate your means; and it is perfectly permissible to use whatever is left over and beyond your personal needs to use whatever is left over to buy her a present of some sort, only not too frequently - perhaps for her birthday or a similar occasion."

- Should the young man follow this advice, he will certainly turn into a useful member of society, and I should advise any prince to take him into his Cabinet; but his love is done with, and if he is an artist, his art as well. The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe.

I have never believed that to secure love, one must follow rules. All the more, immersed in love, I have never found myself able to even consider rules. I know it doesn't often come around, that is, the insatiable curiosity for another, the disregard for the outside reality. And maybe that's why those on the outside so often say s/he seems changed. There's no logic to love; that's the single secret worth sharing. I can't rationalize why I fell in or what made me fall out. Nothing makes you, which is why being in love is intoxicating, inexpressible, ethereal. If someone else influences a difference in you, if s/he refines time, than against all sense say something, anything. Love can never last too long, I promise. And it also is indefinable because it defies expectations. But I would like, at some future time, to try to be more honest and most candid because I do believe the sense that can be made of love through language is evanescent, and therefore would be valuable to write down and make more permanent. For now, I can say, when I am in love I believe living life is simple and therefore my thoughts are sensible. While I am otherwise devoted to a more solitary lifestyle, I become selfless and more comfortable with another presence, more eager. When I smile, my teeth can actually be seen, and if I catch sight of myself, the only thing I can recognize is a child - my naturalness, the very moment, the face when having no fear. It's strange, this contradiction, that when I am in love I don't want nor feel the compulsion to try to make sense of anything. And perhaps, that is what I am in love with.


But what were these but all the obvious answers defining the inexpressible, denying expression. My ambiguity could very well be an artful act to conceal uncertainty. Claudelean Musee the Screened Woman. It's posts like this that, in the back of my throat, make me feel fraudulent, protected, naive, not resourceful, boring. Reading me, I notice the lack.

The Light Shouldn't Keep You

I, especially, was waiting to be touched; wanted to enjoy the hand,
not his who I loved, but the man I hadn’t, not yet.

Fanfarlo

Fanfarlo - Harold T. Wilkins by Stachemou from Stachemou on Vimeo.

Fictionality in Freud

I'll probably have to discard all of this but eh:
*Okay, definitely discarded and definitely, yes, definitely Freud has given my head a sharp spreading pain.

The novelist and the psychoanalyst may as well be twins. Their difference is evident, only, in their opposing trajectories for achieving clarity and presenting meaning to an audience. The novelist is allowed to be less of a presence amongst his subjects. He may inconspicuously observe, within his own reality, the scene of characters in order to structure a perspective that makes present, not an apparent awareness, but a meditated meaning often overlooked in the immediate visual reality and illuminated in the literary. The way an author fashions a character’s story—whether invented or actual—is not determined by a coherent reality, but is decided prior by authorial intention.

On the other hand, to develop meaning the psychoanalyst must be visibly and physically engaged with the individual, whom the material is dependent upon. Therefore, the other confirms one’s existence to proceed with discovering a meaningful story and the illumination that transpires depends upon the relationship between two memories and two perspectives. Truth is not an independent aim as it is for the novelist, but an effort of two minds whose achievement relies on the analyst and the analyzed relationship, their independent intentions and their narrative transparency.

Ultimately, the stories are presented for an audience within the same medium. Language is how the translator and the reader begin to understand the intangible. However, while the author is responsible for the truth that the final presentation retains, the psychoanalyst can claim the story is not from his mind but the patient’s. Therefore, the psychoanalyst is able to transfer any resulting implausibility toward the reality of the case or inadequacy of memory onto the patient—the other. This flee from responsibility is a denial of the psychoanalyst’s critical role in instigating a framework for narration and a platform to perceive event and emotion. To enter the realm of the real one must accept the unreliability of an absolute truth, fantasy and narrative. Freud, just like the author, selected material from memory to confirm and strengthen his theory on the individual. By structuring his cases, Freud was able to control his patient’s narration and manipulate a patient’s truth for his theory on truth. My intention is not to discredit Freud’s discoveries, but rather prove the narrator’s intention makes an absolute truth impossible to communicate. Ultimately, language provides one with the ability to present meaning made possible by narrating to the other an existence shaded by truth and fantasy, neither entirely real or unreal either.

To engage with meaning, one cannot begin without committing himself to memory. The analyst, patient and writer cannot avoid what they know. While memory is inexhaustible, it is nevertheless subject to change. Not only does this change happen in regards to time, but on lucidity and association. However, one element of memory does not change—it is always fragmented. In Freud’s course of psychoanalyst treatment, he dealt with fragmentary recollections remaining in the patient’s memory and also those he had to help bring to consciousness. Whether initially accessible or not, the memories used to structure a patient’s genuine being were pieces of experiential time and patterns of phantasy. Due to the patient’s neurosis, it was Freud’s role to determine which were pieces and not patterns, actuality and not imagination. Any mistake would disturb the analysis and therefore, one’s phantasy could not be exchanged with one’s experience.

However, because of the patient’s memory and it’s relation to age Freud faced many problematics. On one hand, Freud’s psychoanalytical theory was man becomes who is because of childhood experiences. Therefore, Freud’s intention was to direct the patient’s memory backward toward an obscure event experienced during initial stages of development and thus, most fragmented, incomplete and confused with consciousness and unconsciousness. The very communication of childhood elucidated the inexplicable difference between a child’s mind and an adult’s. Freud believed the traces of childhood were permanent scars in the adult mind. Therefore, by pointing to the place of origin one can discover the impressions that are destined to influence one to the end of their life. On the basis of this theory, a narration would be underwhelming if communicated in linear time and would be likely to show no extraordinary change in the individual. The purpose of the story is best communicated if narrated backwards. Freud was determined to prove the primal scene controlled a character’s life. Whether the child in life or simply in his imagination experienced this event did not prevent Freud from validating it as a possibility to valorize his theory and conclude the patient’s past and future cause of neurosis. Freud’s acceptance of an assumption means he believed fiction was interchangeable with fact. Because he thought it was impossible to confirm a child’s memory, he believed fantasy-formations were intended as symbolic representation of real wishes and interests—a reality the patient wants to have experienced. Therefore, whether the fragments of narrative were absolutely experienced in exterior life does not matter since the psychoanalysts’ intention is to free the patient of his interests, obsessions and anxieties in the present moment. Once the meaning of these symbols were determined, Freud was then able to direct his analysis toward the tasks of the present day—a lived time no longer weighted by the anxiety of an obscured past or rather, untranslated dream.

By Myself.

In class assignment: Isolate a moment. Write "I remember" every time something from memory erupts. Then remove "I remember".

All the time I feared we may lose what was meant for us. Alone, I didn’t have anyone else. Silence could not be harmed. But what isn’t affected could never change me, and perhaps for some time now this absoluteness replaced all the other things I couldn’t depend on. How different I was before I came. And did you notice? That’s okay, too. Not everything is meant for memory, although we intend it to be. Meaningful, I think. At least, I don’t remember, the feeling of my hands. Whether absence was my punishment for going under too long, not considering what was meant for us. How I stared like I was fascinated by water, like I had found my eyes. In my bath, the body retains nothing it already knows. Wondering who I’ve become, hands wander in the shape of an opinion. And I, I push under; holding breath, I challenge consciousness, every time more severely. The heart pulsing is not something I can fall asleep to so I wake to whatever hasn’t happened. Leaving myself drained, I step out lighter, smelling of something, but can’t remember the feeling of my hands. We almost were close. Red, splotchy. My eyes see reflected a newborn child. I am numb to sensations coming from myself. My first feelings are never mine. I think. I don’t know. On the tile floor, I am kept clean. And if we are anything alike you probably know this and hear the sound of my body dripping wet. Which is why you call out, why I move. I am coming soon. Driven faster by fear of losing what was meant for us. From marble to rock, I’ve a moment still in being by myself, so I slow. Stepping on the outside, I’m aware only of the sounds I make. A moment more to wonder whether you can cause change, if not just be it—the feeling in my hands. This, you already know, before I wrote, will be how, be why I begin to write us. There’s less chance I’ll stay clean once I walk across the rocks. But it’s less likely we will lose what was meant for us if I do, so I do and I trip, thinking of the time we’re approaching and the harm I’ve already effected. In silence, you watched me cause my own mistake as if this was the first chance in seeing me, really.

JJJJJ

Can't believe in missed this one...

Survival

Heathers - Remember When - Live At MUZU Studios on MUZU.

I'm getting bigger every day.

Today is one of those days. I woke to the sound of a hairdryer blowing, my body smothered by piles on the bed. To open your eyes and immediately wonder in light whether it is the environment that is a mess or only yourself - what a way to spend time, if only a moment or two, it's too much! I know. Danced my tush off last night, after eating a six course meal. Walked east, hoping open air would pacify my nausea. Men everywhere. My ears hanging onto their words. After awhile all the eyes make me feel grotesque. They watch me become more, watch me be less. Today is one of those days I wish I were lighter. My skin tighter, my hunger controlled. Of course, last night wouldn't have been able to happen had I been unwilling to eat. This body I'm in never feels like mine because it is always changing, always shaping itself and deforming who I see myself as. These thoughts make me less of a person, although because of them I am who I am. It's just tough, confusing really, when you don't know if you'll make it in language, and when so many people tell you to use your image to succeed. That I can, that I should, that ultimately I will. It's terrible the comments - the compliments; how they make me feel pressure to maintain some ideal, that isn't natural nor maintainable.

Acceptance.

Last night I reached new heights. An epiphany. Acceptance.

I don't think I'll ever derive the satisfaction, the pleasure, the purpose of my life working in media. I always thought high; thought once I got a foot in, I could change the system. But the mass media doesn't want my morals, my ethics, the sobriety delivered in truth. Entertainment wants me to dream; a mentality I would have to fake. Ultimately, a behavior I would never succeed at. Sure there are directors whose films epitomize the theories and lifestyle I want to deliver in literature. And these are individuals I respect, admire, applaud. But unfortunately (because it can't be better known), they have done something I am trying to do. They have chosen not to be popular. They have chosen not to come easy. They have chosen not to accessible.

I was cornered into fiction probably out of an insecurity with not being an intellectual. Motivating me was my commitment to, once again, change the standards: what one expected and thought they could handle. Ultimately, I knew fiction reached the masses, the youth, the generations in development and I thought I could use the genre to manipulate one into sitting down with fiction only to discover psychoanalytical philosophy was entertaining, engaging, illuminating - fooling them into, not the imagination, but truth. This will forever be my intention - an aim I know, now, won't be a phase because last night I realized this mind body duality has been a lifestyle, my obsession, my commitment since I was a child.

In the midst of friends over, I found myself on my bed with my mouth hung open over this article. At some time I will talk about things I experienced as a child, that ultimately effected my self and shaped my life. From this, I know the first piece of literature I want to be remembered for; a piece my life has already been devoted to. It will be a split piece - two halves - and there will not be anything fictitious about it.

When I was asked to stay after class on Tuesday night, I was faced with a situation that is increasingly becoming more difficult to shake off. My professor, whose presence I have been in only twice, basically insinuated I was either on drugs, have lost my mind or am bipolar. He did not understand my shifting pronoun was intentional, that it was a mind body exploitation and a reference to myself as a child and as an adult, now looking backward. He proceeded to question whether I had any experience with reading fiction. And I proceeded to feel most uncomfortable and left after feeling obligated to apologize multiple times. I would have felt entirely okay had I been apologizing for just not spending time on the work and not reading the fiction, which all had been the cases. I had been up for 24 hours after a flight and a week long vacation - opaqueness was the result; why did my mental health had to be called into question - why inability to write fiction? And why, just because I am a writer, was I expected to be able to write about anything, all the time? Perhaps, the creative writer can.

My focus has been on post-modernity - a consciousness that certainly confuses the self, but these things were part of development, part of the process of finding clarity and making meanings Perhaps it was my fault for ever thinking creative writing/fiction professors would understand my philosophical slant. If I was trying to expose the psychoanalytic effect of the anorexic: seeing her actual self and wanting her ideal self, believing her mind (ego) could be severed from her body (superego) - than, in the fiction realm today one didn't understand why I just didn't write about not eating certain food or looking at how ugly my body is. But those things weren't what was important, and they aren't what the disorder is about. They avoid what the anorexic is always hungering for.

Perhaps to them I was always stepping into the wrong class. My other professors - outside of fiction - appreciated me, whereas the former thought I was all messed up. Again I was told that I was unwanted by the mass media, as if it were something I didn't already know and/or accept. Because of this, I have been feeling this overwhelming pressure to have an imagination, to invent tales and to disregard my thoughts. In entertainment internships, I see repetitively that the workplace has no handling on creative or even conscious control. I'd like to think producers are being critical when reality shows are edited for audiences, but they never voice an argument and therefore, the importance of the issue goes missing and people remain underdeveloped. They fail to be a substantial self freed of images and ideals. Small talk and kissing ass would be me failing as the person I have always been in mind. I

f my life aim is to reveal the core of individuals, to let ourselves be vulnerable, open and candid, to keep the youth from wasting time on complexes like I have then my career must step away from mass media to focus on one's relationship with the self. If I can't be heard in novels, than I want to be heard face to face. If I can't filter in confession, than I am devoted to helping the other confess. If I can't save lives with the written word, than I have every intention to do so with the spoken. Psychoanalysis. The merging of literature and self. Ultimately, the individual is the creative composite. The character I want to develop. The way I can impact others without compromising my self-belief.

Rachel: Chelsea, I love how your bag remains packed, as if you are here but leaving.

I Want Time To Write

There are an overwhelming amount of sensations I would like to actualize with words. So rather than solely feeling them, I can confirm their existence by sight. Somehow, because of this, I suspect we could - together - recognize the reality of our interior and perhaps trust that we can achieve permanence for one another. Maybe all it takes for us to be, is this acknowledgment: what makes the feelings of two seperate selves significant is the chance they are the same. What would we become if we didn't have to be strong, which is to say, if we let our feelings take advantage of us? What would you do if you let yourself go and from doing so achieved/received your desire? An overabundance of time devoted to self-consciousness prohibits the profound. I respect this opinion but have to add, it may paralyze as well. Was it Woody Allen who said postmodernists perform mental masturbation? Still, Woody, this right here doesn't make me feel like I'm grazing any base. Especially after last week, when it seemed pleasure was pursuing me, instead of I to it. Which is to say, I was more natural and did not dwell, even though I laid in a bedroom that wasn't mine for longer than I have ever allowed and looked upon some other without the will to escape being seen. During this time, I looked outward more than the reverse and discovered my eye became newly fascinated by someone I wasn't thinking about. I found us lucky and successful without regard to the goal of attaining a sort of selfish state. My eye saw without thinking, and this I believe is how I found myself indulged in pleasure. I am facing the fact that without activity, my smile is lifeless and my character paralyzed. I am committed to thought and live for conversation, but I can't stand the retelling of stories. Why? Because one finds themselves in explanation, which postpones the real and truly severes us from our sensual social self. And I don't want to hear myself sounding seperate from how I feel. And I don't want to stop my process within the present to live in a past that has already happened. This detracts from the pleasure and the overarticulation is an awareness where I am portrayed unnaturally - where in order to expound I must exaggerate; ultimately a romanticization that is humorous (in that entitites become an ideal) or tragic (in that analysis is not in tune with the moment's true time). Perhaps because I was seeing sense, sensuality and sensation in such different terms last week I inevitably fell from not thinking about where I was going (consequences, reason, logic). But the fall didn't hurt (or it hasn't, not yet, and if it does it will be a seperate chapter all together). What did happen is I had to bring myself up and think how I had fallen. Instead, the only thing I could think was: why can I not say but one word, that feels so easy and natural from within. There was such tension - how my tongue was tracing over that single word and yet, I couldn't sync it with sound to make it mean something. Maybe even to confirm we matter.


Message 1: Chelsea you are quite elusive.
Message 2: You are interesting, as always, but unclear.

- Is clarity a result of knowing one's self and being fearless? If so, what does this say about me? If I were clear and therefore, also the symptoms that come with it, would I have opposed the logic in remaining speechless, and just said what I feared I felt?

Ep, now I have an hour to write about masochism and sadism...?

2005 "My Future Has Been Planned Out"

A picture with then's post.
Today four years ago, my senior year of High School, I wrote this:

"My future has been planned out"

I am moving to the UK to pursue a modeling career.
I will work for Dazed &Confused
&within time create my own European magazine called Edge.
I will fly to Milan on the weekends for runway shows
&then grace the streets of New York for fashion week.
I will play foozball with Matt &go to pubs.
Then drink wine with my dearest Alex as we dance the night away.

- I haven't any recollection of who these Matt and Alex characters were. Also, I feel most disinterested in fashion. And this has been going on for the last 3 years. But to be reminded of my desire to create a magazine called Edge. Wowow, does that bring me back. I remember wanting the name to go down the right corner edge of the magazine. All in all on that Valentine's Day in 2005, my wants were quite superficial. I was absolutely acting a role. And my future prediction is rather dissimilar to the ones I have pursued up through today. The post went on to receive 45 comments. My sister never wrote in, just as she never reads my blog now, but the few times she did she knocked the socks off me:

Attention to the two who masturbate to the thought of making others more miserable than themselves -despite what mtv and the demons in your heads might tell you- stupidity is not a virtue of any sort. And you are so unfunny that you put shame to 'anonymous' users all around. go bathe your souls or read a book and learn the value of intelligence and then I can only hope that you've obtained enough confidence in yourself not to need to put down others or concern yourself with their life to the degree you have.

As Time Darkens, The Body Becomes Shadowed.

I look behind me to forget my future for a while. A green lawn turns yellow after lunch. Eyes feel brilliant discovering the change. Next to trees, flowers are insignificant. But alone, each dandy is wild with appeal. Fingers pluck pink suckles ornamenting the bush. Her palm becomes heavy with afterlife – it is nature, not everything is meant to show a vigorous bloom.

She takes no notice, that it will only be her that grows from this experience. A bead is at the bottom of every stem. She studies it in light and pulling gently, draws honey. Her tongue is sweet, her desires tender, her pleasures tasteful. Simplicity is why she smiles.

But the youth are lucky because they don’t think of that. They don’t waste playtime concerned with cause.

In the backyard, she has no limitations and the unknown doesn’t exhaust her. A hammock leans, the palms wave. The afternoon appears to be yawning, but she’d rather not wait for dreams. Parents let their children go.

A fence doesn’t determine how far an eye sees. Columbus didn’t stay between the lines and he lived beyond his death. We learn from adventure. Our Muse is Courage, our life force Curiosity. Inhibition doesn’t define us or decide who we are becoming. In youth the imagination is free to wander and picture who or what lies beyond an arm and a leg’s reach. Facts don’t disturb us yet and we aren’t anxious for our reality to change or think it can, know it will.

We write our own chapters. We share our own lives. And sometimes, even she likes to sign a different name. But never encouraged by fear of who may read our words, who will see our mind. On paper, an unwrinkled hand doesn’t avoid the superficiality filtered through the everyday. Whether we live for our self then or creation is a product of age, we sound better not trying to impress. Genuinely, the child is proud of a merging ego – thinking she’s been promised a lifelong friend.

Dad is testing chlorine, as Mom watches from the kitchen cleaning lunch off dishes. I follow, while everyone has her in mind. Although it’s never been said, we all hope for the same: please let us remember these times.

Where there was water for him, there is earth for her. Feet walk godlike, careful not to crush a snail’s shell. Attached to bark, a butterfly’s wings are folded from sap. Her breath provides mobility. They both proceed, not crushed by death. She believes caution and compassion are all one needs to keep the living safe. Should I warn her now or let her continue exploring? In memory I will be insensible and her knees will bruise either way. At this time, it’s too late to save her. She has already happened.

Trailing behind, like a tail, her blanket is soiled by dirt. Each stain lends character. Shh, Mom is the only one that likes things to appear new. But even when she sees her daughter in need of a deep scrub, and says a child’s carelessness is a clever way to end up in timeout, Mom will still close her eyes a few years after hoping a stain’s trace will lead her back to a vivid memory. Lead her back to a time when everyone was a bit younger and children encouraged us to be brave, to be careless; when the child tried to teach those looking down to be free.

My fear is I don’t know myself as well as I’d like. That my fascination has been disturbed and my attention now is fixated on intangibilities—minor sensations that the poet is intent on exploding, expanding for the eyes of an audience that will never show. Hell the writer rarely is attracted to cinema because intelligence isn’t awarded and his difference is always translated without care for the screen. I fear my attention now is fixated on inexplicable compulsions to discern meaning in ideations that don’t literally matter. I fear I went to college as a writer and became a critic. I fear being labeled “dense” is really no different than dressing up in a costume no one understands. I fear my personal library is the best thing I have going for me, but with it and because of it I will only achieve solitude—a self-designed, a self-imposed think-tank. I fear I am female whose feelings can’t make you feel. I fear the translation: I am a female who has forgotten how to feel. But most of all, I fear the rate at which I forget a character’s fabric, the texture of experience, the pattern of life. I fear the dark where dreams can’t be seen. My assignment today was to write three childhood memories subjected to mystery. Sensations circling the unknown. I have never done these exercises and it’s best I do, but I can’t deny the difficulty. I thought backward and in mind could see nothing. I fear I am unmemorable, my experiences undistinguishable. A lemonade stand there, a goldfish here, a bunny in a bag, a tent and a father with a blistering body from sleeping in the sun. Otherwise, the lines you read are lies by imagination, times I haven’t seen or known in body. My mind is patchy, my feelings underdeveloped, my attachment severed. The past four years are speechless. I spent many hours traveling alone, narrating the disparity between exterior and interior vision. And what I came up with in mind is something I’m not confident I can tell you. But to me—and this is the critic or as the professors say, “poetic philosopher” speaking—the few mysteries I could discover from my past are exactly what made childhood so special. I lived. I didn’t question, not in the way that prevented me from acting in the present. Pulsating through my every piece is the nostalgia for youth—a memory of a Self I do adore—where I lived unconsciously, when I was fearless and unaware of time or theory, and when I didn’t judge that certain being as naïve.

This Transparency

Lighter than a cork I danced on the waves.
Rimbaud, The Drunken Boat.

2005, April 13

[today i began reading a book on love; the definition of it as a starting point. every time i think of love, i automatically begin training my mind and body on how to reject it (the feelings &person i associate the possibility of potential with) from now on my phone is turned off; i cant handle phone calls, just leave a message. i just want to concentrate on my future; if that means clearing my path of others.. okay]

-April 13, 2005.

A shame, I was ever so fatalistic, so seemingly guarded. The problematic about words though is they are the result of an idle body opposing a fragmented mind, that and exaggeration. I have kept journals since I was in elementary. At a certain age the material changed significantly. The angle was elsewhere. The moment I became aware of my own self-consciousness, I stopped recording action and the chaos of happiness. The moment I felt the weight of others was the moment I stopped writing about pleasure. I avoided the superficiality that is so often evident in the everyday. The summer I experienced love was the season I stopped romanticizing memory, figuring a translation discredited sensation and was too removed from the real. After the spring, once I reread seven years of entries, I promised if I were to begin writing again I would be ambiguous. What I discovered in the journals was a story that had taken control of me, a perspective that determined me from afar. I had forgotten pleasure on the page because I was committed to living it in life. What has happened now? Two and a half years since then? A density - a result of discovering voice and resisting a conscious commitment to my obsessions, my query. Then there are the translations of my lived experience - a compulsion to find meaning, so I never regret - a result of feeling responsible for truth, for promising my self, a result of the ego and the inability to invent a life which isn't mine, a result of dissatisfaction with self, the desire to be in dialogue with those I can't speak naturally with, a result of anxiety, an anxiety that overwhelms my ability to think elsewhere, a self-consciousness that deters me from feeling, an image disorder that exhausts me and prevents me from living beyond my body, a result of being a journal-ist and perhaps not a novelist. What has happened now, always? An audience. The result? Ambiguity, to keep you unnamed, unrealized, to keep my memory of you a mystery, a truth I can deny.

What transpires is a reluctancy to be transparent. Most of what I live in body never makes it back to the journal. What I do on daily bases, how often I sleep, what I do once I wake, the routine, the surprise, the event. For example, last night: a curly haired dude on my couch, had on a Modest Mouse shirt under his overshirt, followed the band around one show to the next, a devotee I suppose you could say, or is it a fanatic?, thought he looked good, hadn't seen him in awhile, he called attention to my hair not being blonde, I thought about time, whether the speed gave it more or less value, Chad knocked on door, friendly high spirits, could cats play?, no I'm on the way out, we rode the elevator down, thanked curly haired guy for introducing me long ago to hypem.com, said he was responsible for my new music internship, talked about Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, walked a street over to friend's, I wore black and gold, met someone new, drank rose, danced in my friend's shades in front of her mirror, said I wanted to be in a dance video, had a vodka cranberry, organic vodka (I think it was called Rain.. jazzy bottle indeed), took a cab to Terminal 5, said I never dance at concerts, too much in awe, sometimes unfortunately too aware of my body, want to get out of it, can't, they said they didn't believe me, I said wait and see, never listened to Black Keys, was there ready and willing, got a beer, hate beer, never drink beer, drinking beer, liking beer, text message: "You doing anything in the city tonite" "Black Keys baby" "Info?" "Sold out concert at Terminal 5" "I see..." "Do you? How! Are you here? :)" "In lespirit" "You are sensation" opening band, dancing, surprise surprise, sister disappears, messing around with people in audience, laugh about what it would be like to be "that person" who won't let someone pass through the crowd, sarcastically flirt with some guy, tell him he is going to have to tell his girlfriend to move ahead, fires back "she isn't my girlfriend," I tell him to dance, ten minutes later, he gets my attention "how are you? can you see?" "no, no, I think you might have to cut her at the ankles." "you got an ax?" I laugh, thinking if anyone ever heard this it would sound absolutely hostile and terrible, but it's fun and I like not having to make sense or be rational. Send a text message to someone I actually have the urge to see, receive message, confirms how much I hate messages, the void in distance, how I need face to face to feel in any way more so in the known, sis is back, mixed drink for me in hand, nice, girls are complaining, at first I let it go, then it just becomes foul, boys with Xs on their hands are bitching about smoke, telling girls they are with that they have seen plenty of those "weed cigarettes" before and those are okay, but cigs are just nasty, I'm dancing, we're dancing, we're going crazy, the three of us turn out to be the only dancing, I have a guy in front of me, he is a stand in for a prop, he doesn't move, but I'm grinding, my friend's gloved hands are grabbing air, hypnotic, I watch some dark hair pearly teeth guy talk with a girl, he looks like Alex Nahai, I'm loving this, their behavior is telling, I hope they end up back together, somewhere, kissing, they have to, I've never seen anyone speak with a smile, he's got it down, I make this known, we're so close to the stage, it's completely packed, somehow I am able to do 360 spins the entire night, eyes are staring, people assuming we are on ecstasy, if this is ecstasy I'm for it, some girl that cut in front of us bitching to my sister for having her body touch hers, I remind her she was the one that stepped in front of us, she doesn't stop bitching, I tell her I was being easy when I said she was killing the mood earlier, but now she is determined to destroy it, they stop bitching when I ask them how this can be the worse thing that has happened to them tonight, then remind them where we are and how good this is, then they start dancing and at one point even manage to laugh, I smell like garbage, I wonder whether people think my twin and I are in some sort of relation, guys on second level waving down, getting my friend's attention by pointing to her glove, shows over, they motion us to the left, the brother of the singer from The Black Keys wants us to go backstage, we go, friend acting starstruck, adorable, more beer, everything is lax, not what I think people expect, uncles in the corner, the brother's birthday, 15 minutes until 27, M&Ms, dark chocolate, can't get enough, never thought I liked M&Ms, loving them, mirrors jagged all over walls, 5 4 3 2 1, happy birthday, no one really cheers, feels weird, it comes with age I suppose, go downstairs, Geoff, Alli, me, she smokes a cig, we watch, take pictures, look at pictures, see picture of his puggle, staples all down his stomach, swallowed an ornament, I'm not really sure what happens, what the hours were filled with, but it was nice, friendly, and we were all sorta just there, together, they say he likes me, I don't catch on to any of that, slaps my ass on stairway up, tell him that was my back not my ass, ask him when he is coming to Miami, ask him whether he's ever been, says no way no way, not hip enough for that, not one for hours in the sun, I laugh, what has MTV done to the image and assumption of my hometown?, closing place down, going to some bar, my ass is still being talked about, "It's just I never have been an ass guy, but" "But how do you know if you've been with the same woman for 9 years?" I never know what to think, is someone always fleeing the relation?, excited about potential, possibility, sensation from achieving the unknown?, cab back, cab stop, bathroom break some ex's apt, driver upset, understandable, cab start, smoke, text message, invite to go again tomorrow night to Black Keys, tea, phone shut off, Chelsea Lately, pizza, cat knocks 19$ vegan green-tea pizza on floor, lying on ground, 3:50am, wake up on ground to buzzer buzzing non-stop, think it's the neighbor, sister isn't budging on couch, close eyes, 4am still buzzing, "Shit, Alli, it's the delivery" "Okay okay" "No get up", thirty seconds later, in one gulp I take down a mint-chocolate chip shake, wake in a mess of make up, paralyzed body, spread chocolate frosting on toast, happy that I danced after I thought I wouldn't but knew that was the only thing I want, the only thing I need.

But what happens when I can still hear them/me.

It was unfortunate. My voice. How when heard, it never failed to suggest my being there. And yet, never was I always. So who was responsible for the deception: the voice or the ear? I swear I wish I knew for it is definitely deceitful, being it feels difficult—the constant activity and ceaseless changing or at least the expectation that I am never not being. To live up to this fate requires a high I have never been confident I can maintain. Maintain without crashing. Chipping tooth and splitting spine on spiral downward. And even during plunge toward passive tense, I’d persist in inhaling. Truly, addicted to life force. But even now, I cannot promise whom I will end up as. And I should never know! Because when this much awaited and insignificantly anticipated event takes place, I will not be present. Ah, I may care here and now, but ultimately whatever I am captured for and seen as won’t matter much to me. So don’t dare to find a way for me to hear it. I promise my body won’t be wanted back once I am finally free of its encumbering existence. (It isn’t mine, even though, yes, I may be attached to it or it to me, but you see, this happens often, this attachment that is). Keep myself away! I give you and all others permission. But this matter won’t happen soon—at least I have my Self believe—so it is of no critical concern, simply let us promise not to betray our promises. And anyway, really, there is no way of knowing who we are or which one of us will forget to live first and in doing so, be finished with time. But this doesn’t mean I haven’t tried to figure this “I” out. Already, always, again and again. Until…Oh, enough! Already? Yes yes, enough!

But my words must go on because the thoughts won’t die out.

It was unfortunate. My voice. How when heard, it never keeps listeners from assuming I am someone I, myself, haven’t felt I live being. And even if they themselves would argue they are not defining me as one way or an other, it was no doubt unfortunate they attached certain qualities I never regarded myself with having. This voice of not me, but my words, I ask you: How is it we permit you such power to project who I am heard as and what I am not thought to be? Yet another controlling me!

Why? Yes, I wonder too. The class of bobbing heads rise up, fall down over the mere utterance of love. A trope, I think, for attachment. But I don’t share that. I don’t let myself sound as critical as I know myself to be. Inside me this urge to shake, to smother, to laugh and roll my eyes. Twenty-three females theorizing love, standing in for the lover, others speaking on behalf of the beloved. The dialogue of crushes set their faces aflame. A word I’d rather stomp out when I hear injected with importance in the claim, “I have a crush on Tom Cruise. He’s so wonderful and perfect. So well traveled and affected.” I can’t help it. I can’t help my hand from jetting through air. Reaching out, me! me!, my voice it has something it wants to say, would like to ask. “I think this whole notion of the crush is underdeveloped. The mere use of it is a reminiscer for childhood. And so far the class seems to define the crush as an unattainable object of undeserved fascination.” My voice has said too many words, together falling very, very short of a question. To them, the truth is I am how I sound. Right now, I am a smattering of fear and right then those whispering girls fear who I am. Who cares who I was at birth when no one is comforted by who I have become. Crushed by abandonment. They fear their future is reflected in me.

Those girls whispering. Across the table. They free their mind, unraveling my core with a narrow selection of words. Plunging depths without remorse for my interior. Those whispering girls. Epitomize the distance between self and other. I share my Tuesday and Thursday morning with those girls, their whispers. Those girls that always whisper. And when there isn’t a shallow vowel rubbing out through throat, they scribble words on loose-leaf. Tear my waist in half. I catch their eye as they are breathing “hang’er up” with pen on paper. What’s worse than whispers—ink, the irrevocable trace of having been.

To survive, I become drugged—a passive unfamiliar stateless self. My eyes close to escape sobriety. To escape committing to a promise. The promise of being some way I am not certain I will be, continually. To escape the practice of commonality, control, clarity—indulging in sense, not sensation—pledging to be not I but one and the same—to escape nothing, I close my eyes.

See, those whispering girls were always absent, until they began sharing their Tuesday and Thursday mornings with me. Until those meaningless girls became visual. Until those girls took it even further! Until they became phonetic, physical beings. To escape what I know they know, to escape the self I am seen as, I close my eyes. Blind behind lids, I abandon their being. Again and again. Their exhaustion allows me to be free. Allows me to be me, the me I'll think myself to be. In blackness, reflecting nothing, they are all the same: in visible and no one. For each other, we are back to being as we were. Not sensed. Safe. Fortunate to be unknown.

Thought Him So Beautiful

Alessi's Ark - The Horse