| "Into the vast and empty alleys we proceed..." |
[Oct. 4th, 2006|02:03 pm] |
Don't talk in the first person. Remove yourself. And talk about how it has never found you. Talk about how you searched. But whatever you do, never say the word love. "LOVE" is a fucking illusion, my friend. LOVE is a 4-letter word, just like FUCK and LIFE, but we don't GO anywhere on those words. What is REAL? I want to be going somewhere and doing something all the time. I want to be in motion. When you stop moving, they creep in and the sadness drips like black coffee down, down to somewhere I can't reach and caffeine makes my heart race in a way that's scary, in a way that won't let me sleep. THAT'S real. I am the only thing in my dreams that is real. So don't look through my aspirations, don't call them transparent, and tell me I don't have it all figured out. I've got it figured out. I've got nothing. And there is a girl spinning in flip-flops, hair floating, Coors in hand, suspended in a photograph. She's who you miss and she is the lead, and I am in the audience watching. I HATE being in the audience. I want a role, now. I'm tired of actors, musicians, writers - boys creating everything and they only love the girls who can't create. The girls who are their fans, not their equals.
DON'T. WRITE. POETRY. Poetry is only for the broken-hearted. You don't get the right to complain. You aren't the troubadors. You are the kings.
They don't read when you need them to. They don't love when you want them to. They don't love. Ever. They only love everyone else. |
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| "Time won't wait for you!" |
[Dec. 9th, 2005|01:20 pm] |
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Joints and Jams by BEP reminds me of my first days at the Holiday Inn, sophomore year at Binghamton and my first year away at school. I think the song began with my friend Khalid Umar, this straight-edge upstate boy who looked more urban and individual than half the kids we knew from the city. He had the perfect ass, wore puff vests, his hats sideways and never went anywhere without his walkman. My computer is infested with Khalid's handpicked Kazaa tracks, but for some reason Joints and Jams reminds me of him, the hotel's cable TV channel playing the latest hip hop hits...and my crazy roommate. She sputtered angry, Exorcist-reminiscient pleas for us to go to sleep while we stayed up looking for subliminal messages in Beatles songs. When I wasn't with Khalid, I'd go to the bars and party with the rest of the Inn crowd. But at the end of the night, I never failed to wake him up, probably because he was just as much fun sober as the Long Island drunks. |
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| Interesting... |
[Dec. 9th, 2005|11:47 am] |
These are excerpts from a survey that I just received on MySpace this morning. Out of 100 people who had to list anonymous secrets, 20 people had the following things to say. That's 1/5 people who are not happy at all. Why would I post this? It's just a montage to help people (and myself) remember how widespread the issues are. Even though it doesn't solve anything for us, at least it's proof that I'm not alone as I think I am. Hopefully, if you needed it, it'll help you, too. In a very unconventionally thought of way, it shows how many people are connected by suffering...which could be a deeper connection than the filler on which we think the bonds we are lacking should be based. Peace!
1. I hate who i am...if i could, i would change everyhing about me, and i cry myself to slepp every night. im in love and i cant imagine having to leave him.
2.I really still want to kill myself.
3.i cry myself to sleep every night
4.I want to die !!!!!
5. I'm afraid I'll never know anyone that I truly care about that actually wants to be with me.
6.i hurt more than anything in the world and fake my "happiness" to almost 98% of the people i know
7. I hate myself, like I really do everything I do is always wrong and nothnig is ever good enough and no matter what I can never just, be happy.
8. I'm so afraid of being rejected that I push perfectly good boys away before they have a chance to get close to me. If they don't know the real me, they can't not like the real me.
9.i'm super lonely
10.im a cutter
11. I starting to feel depressed again, and I don't know why. My life is completly fine.
12. I hate myself.
13. im tired of being lonely, but scared to let another guy in
14. IM NOT AFRAID OF DEATH........IM AFRAID IF ANYBODY WILL CARE..............
15. i used to cut.
16. Everyone counts on me to be perfect all the time. I'm afraid I'll fail and let them all down. Then they'll know the real me isn't special at all.
17. I've been wanting to cut myself.
18.I hate almost 3/4 of my friends
19. I don't cry infront of anyone. I go to my room or some place private and cry my heart out. Plus people don't know when I cry too.
20. i hate myself so much that i want to assassinate my own self.
21.I have major emotional problems. |
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| "Those are the ones for me. The misfits. The freaks." |
[Dec. 8th, 2005|07:14 pm] |
In an effort to stop future breakups, I developed an image of the guy for me. It turns out that this guy is the guy for every girl. I've been lucky enough to meet him more than once. And I've been unlucky enough to fall for each version. I came to realize that they could have their pick of girls, of at least 2/3 of us. I guess the variety of choice made it that much easier for them to reject me. I won the titles of "best friend", "honest" and "open-hearted". With each one, I had to find out why they didn't see the compatibility in me that I saw in them. For a while, I just wasn't pretty enough to attract them. But then I came up with better reasons, more intricate ones. The fact that it wasn't meant to be was beyond my grasp. I pinpointed understanding in the details - their tastes, our patterns of behavior. They all seemed to be happier than I was, confident, funny, diplomatic and the life of the party. I didn't watch the same TV shows as them, I couldn't tell what movies their quotes came from, I never heard their favorite comedians, I couldn't sing the lyrics of the CDs they listened to the most. That was why they didn't like me. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe I didn't like them. I never even knew them at all. And maybe, just maybe...everyone was right. Maybe I just wasn't easy.
I went on to meet guys who didn't have the prereq's I wanted. They weren't the image of "the right one", and I nervously went along with "the right now". I'd tell myself and all of my friends that it wasn't going to work out. I laid claim to every red flag of denial in the book, insisting I wasn't impressed.
But I fell for the "wrong ones", too. And in the end, I was right - they didn't work out. I don't know if it's worse to fall for the ones you get involved with or for the ones who never gave you a chance. Regardless of whether you make out or sit there and talk, hoping you'll make out but never actually getting kissed, there is still a haunting history that remains. Whether he's an ex or an unrequited crush, the disappointment nails you in the same spots - ego, dignity and that small sense of pride that used to get you out on Saturday nights.
Do our standards even matter? I had an ideal, only to look back on it as I walked away. I've developed hundreds of theories about attraction and love. After all, if you can't experience it firsthand, find out how it works. My latest theory is that perhaps some backwards people, like myself, become attracted to everyone who doesn't see them in that way. Maybe the "right guys" were confident, or talkative or funny because they didn't give a shit about what I thought.
My life right now is a stop sign. I have nowhere to go, and even if I did, I wouldn't know how to get there. Navigating my way through the opposite sex has proven no more fruitful and gained me no distance. If this is just a slump, it is the longest slump I've been in, and I don't see the point in continuing it. I never said I wanted to live a downward spiral. This is not what I would have chosen, if I had been given a choice. Where is the rainbow everyone talks about? I need some relief. There has been no reward for sufferring. It's only a string of mishaps but we act like it's this boardgame we're hopping around on, just to pass GO. I know the rules. You choose to be happy. You make do with what you have. You change your lifestyle. Those cliches are stale and when people are at their lowest, what do cliches do? I guess they give everyone watching something to say. I could bounce back. I could have hope. And I could wait until an event or a person takes it away again.
Disappointed. I was supposed to be disillusioned by now, but sometimes, I feel as naive and immature as I was at 12. The truth is, guys really are assholes, they almost always lie, and the dicking over is NEVER going to stop. Never. And I'm worn out from it. Too tired to cry, too distracted to sleep, too bummed to do a lot of things.
I believe that some people don't have soulmates. I could be one of them. |
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| "As I sit and watch the snow fallin' down..." |
[Nov. 30th, 2005|06:14 pm] |
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My junior year at Binghamton, my suitemates, a few of our friends and I stole trays from the dining hall and hit the slopes near Newing. The trays had these chopped off corners to sit snugly at the hall tables, so your ass wouldn't entirely fit on one. But we couldn't bring ourselves to ditch the loot, which we argued had technically been paid for by the tuition that every student knew was used to cover stolen cafeteria goods. Eventually, the trays broke under the pressure and we slid down the hills on our numbed stomachs and backsides. But I saved one of the battered grey pieces of plastic, intending to keep it as a souvenir. It's gone, now. The housecleaning woman threw it out along with our moldy Wild, Wok and Wings takeout that was left in the dormroom over Christmas break. Luckily, it turns out I can still remember that night, even without the remainder of our makeshift sleds. |
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| "And I'm sorry Mr. Jones...it's...time." |
[Nov. 8th, 2005|09:29 pm] |
the one time i laughed about the matter was when this one comedian joked about how he wanted to be remembered, and figured he'd leave his mark on the world by shoving ice cream in a little kid's face. somehow it was then that i realized i was wrong - it wasn't bad that i kept remembering so many things, so many people. it didn't even matter if anyone construed it as bad.
the truth was that those people had forgotten about me. and if i passed through their minds briefly in the space that had elapsed, their possible reflections amounted to exactly what they started as: nothing. my friend was right: you just have to learn to forget about the people who forget about you.
i'll probably still remember. but at least now, i'm no longer delusional that the nostalgia will be returned. |
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| Al and Tara |
[Nov. 2nd, 2005|11:59 pm] |
I'm not good with dialogue. I wish I was. I wish I could remember the quotable things we said, switch words around, tweak the vocabulary until this story sounded like a flashback from St. Elmo's Fire (or hopefully better). But I remember what we did, where we were, who we were with. I remember how Tara decided to race Al's car at a stoplight, and how we prided ourselves on being a little bolder than the average girl when we won. Later she loaded up the trunk with blankets and we sat on Roackaway beach. Each couple had their own spot. Tara and Al were form-fitted in a sleeping bag nearby. Tara's sister Jane and our friend Jon huddled a little further along the coast. And I...I wasn't part of a couple. I was with one of Al's friends. Rich. The two of us were matched up a few nights before and sat in that awkward silence that only comes with a not-quite-blind date on a beach in the middle of winter at midnight. Maybe I don't remember what we said because it was that awkward silence. Or maybe we remedied it with the filler all people manage to mumble when they've just met. But don't you see? It wasn't what any of us said that mattered.
I was happy then. There was something familiar in how we were all coupled up, even though I wasn't that familiar with my part of the duo at all. I guess I wasn't too familiar with any of them. But I had a love for my best friend and a love for the six of us being in on something so random together. Because that night was definitely random. Later on we gawked at African masks and artifacts staring and poking at us from inside the apartment of Tara's babysitting charge. They were away (in Africa?) and had lent her their place for the weekend. There was a fishtank I stared at with my new friend and we cracked on the innocent marinelife until Tara's sister kicked Al and Tara, Rich and I out.
I was sick. I shivered and coughed and sniffled my way through the sleepover at Al's house. Al and Tara shared his bed, Rich and I shared the floor. To this day it's something that for a few hours, Rich tried to squeeze the shakes out of me. Not many strangers would get too close when you have the flu, or what looks like it. Even less would cuddle with you during it.
We aren't couples, anymore. None of us. Jane and Jon broke up shortly after New Year's. Rich and I didn't pan out through college graduation, exes, past relationships, one night stands, drunkenness and all the other adventures of college that now seem so wonderful in their absence. And here, last but not least to go after almost 2 years, is Al and Tara. As I sit at this computer late on a November night, I can't help but to reminisce about our night during that winter break. It was years ago, and apparently, they've all grown past it. But, me? Reminiscing is what I do. I guess it takes me longer than everyone else to move past things that are gone. Or maybe I never really move past them at all. Tara and Al's breakup was a sad one. Sad, no doubt, for them...but sad for me, also. If I could hate at least one of them, if I could hate Al for breaking my best friend's heart, it would be easier. But I don't hate him. And when you like both parties involved in a breakup, it's just disappointing all around. Their snuggling in a sleeping bag isn't enough to show you, the reader, just how good he was to her or just how much she loved him. But in my world, they were the something I could believe in. Maybe they were a symbol. Maybe that whole night was a symbol: good times in a foreign place, warmth in the cold, home in my company, rather than a house. In the city, it's so easy for the sensitive to feel lost. I travel in and out of Manhattan, sometimes meet new people, always take the train home alone. But I wasn't lost back then. There was strength in Tara and Al. There will be strength in them still, but this time it's separate.
Today, we're all separate. Occasionally I share a laugh or pun-infested online conversation with Rich. Once in a while I call Jon. I just talked to Al, trying in such a pitifully fruitless way to comfort him about the oddity of falling out of love. And I see Jane when I see Tara. Tara, perhaps, is the greatest souvenir I have taken from that night. In her, there is no end to our part of the story.
And I guess there is no end in any of us. Every night, we all have a wish. Some of us have many. Tonight I have one, that my friends move forward, beyond the breakup and beyond the memories to wherever they have to go. Yes, part of me wishes they'd move forward together. But circumstance is never constant. We never were couples. You see? We were just college kids, pairing ourselves up for a good time. At the end, what are we? Sometimes aquaintances, sometimes friends. And sometimes all we are is that one night in my memory, relived the best way I know how - through writing. And when relationships end, I think it's best if that's all they become...a good story. No - a great one. I think Al and Tara know this. And if they don't...
I hope one day they will. |
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| Somtimes it takes another day to say... |
[Oct. 30th, 2005|05:13 pm] |
The hard cold fact is that for some people, it's easier to let go than others. I will admit it now. I'm one of those people that doesn't let go easily. It's not that I cling or that I even WANT to. It's that somewhere in my dream to make the deeper, sadder events in life into a good story, I nursed the habit of holding on to memories. While you hold on to memories, you trick yourself into thinking that all you're doing is remembering. In actuality, you're carrying the people, not just the memories, around with you. And if those people don't reciprocate the action, you're left looking/feeling...a little pathetic.
If I spend half my time wandering around in the memories of exes, the other half of my time doesn't give me enough time to observe everything that's new. Divided into dreams, journal entries, memory-inducing places and the Satanic/maybe kind of awesome inventions known as Facebook and MySpace, it's harder to invoke understanding of that saying "Out of sight, out of mind." No one is left out of our sight, now. Campus is far behind me, but I can still see its main characters. Only will power could fix it...
So there goes that plan. In all the songs and stories you can write about the things that hurt from as far back as 5 years ago, or as close up as 5 months ago, is it all a waste of time? Others can regard the art with a sense of connection, but where does all the effort go? I could never move forward if I continued to miss people as much as I do.
In all of my foolish confessions, thank God no guys really know how or why or how much I miss certain things about the ones who mattered. All they ever do when that news gets out is label you as "psycho". I don't understand how missing people, or seeing good things in them, somehow got misconstrued into being a bad thing. |
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| BY JOVE - |
[Oct. 13th, 2005|08:46 pm] |
I FUCKING GOT IT!!!! for the love of God, i GOT IT! SHITTT. okay, the simpler people want to get with the complex people, because they want the intensity they don't provide on their own. the quiet want the loud, because they want the animation they can't give on their own. and the humorless want the hilarious, because they want to hear the jokes they can't make on their own.
DON'T YOU GUYS SEEEEE?!?!? thissssssss is why it doesn't work. THIS is why you want what you can't have and you don't want the ones who chase you. and i will end such a theory with saying that there is, always, the exception to every rule, which in this case would be true love. now then, where is my Nobel peace prize?!? |
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| Gather your attention span, it might be worth it today. |
[Oct. 3rd, 2005|03:05 pm] |
What is the point in Livejournal's existence, anyway? Are we arrogant enough to assume our thoughts matter to the outside world?
For some, maybe. For others, it's multi-purpose. First, I can establish my identity, unknot the webs I've weaved, the webs everyone's weaved. In my Lit and Theory class, they called the webs ideologies: history, narrow-mindedness, forward thinking, families, assholes. Ideologies are basically anything that has affected your way of thinking, predicted your thinking, or even challenged you to sort out the difference. If you have never thought about this influence, look into it. Or look out. Look at the views different people have on race, class, morals, and all the other shit we try to forget with the highs we seek. After that's fucked you up enough, you'll move into the second phase: what do I do with knowing this?
I've got no clue what to do. So, I make marks. We're always in the midst of proving ourselves. Books are proof of self. The good ones are also attempts to reach out, define our own ideologies, support or reject them. Herein lies one of Livejournal's biggest debates. Is it about the writer, or the reader? Journals are our thoughts. Livejournals are thinking with an audience - an enigma technology threw our way as soon as we started "TALKING" to a screen. The impersonality of it was like alcohol for computer users around the globe. Suddenly, it was easier to break up, easier to confess, easier to attack, only now participants had the viciousness of thought-out response. Email, AIM, online addiction. I'm guilty of all of them. Conversation is not scripted, and for the extroverted, leaves many opportunities to embarass the shit out of ourselves, say too much, the wrong things, the wrong way. In all of it, the "just be yourself" motto holds your head high on the way to your next brick wall...but it will not stop you from ramming up against it in another verbal taboo. Cyberconversation can make these fuckups erasable. It can edit them...
Or it can make them worse. For writers, the whole "thought-out response" tactic gets lost. The best we've got is organic and raw. By the time tact can take back our instant messages, MySpace bulletins, and emails, it's too late. We unload all that is personal, excellent in a Tim O'Brien book - but considered too much for "real life" interaction - just by clicking SEND. I've always felt I expressed too much. Even that statement expresses too much. Maybe that's society's ideologies on what's artistic, what's weird and what's too intense. It takes balls to expose yourself. It's not always smart to post your thoughts, on or off the computer screen. There will forever be the insecurities crippling people into conversation limited to criticisms or jokes on anyone but themselves. Show them anything of you and they can turn your offerings into their best weapons, and your worst enemy.
But there are plenty of entries on here that you can't see. (Someone was quick enough to leave a Privacy option.) Once my discretion has been used (or not used), the unfortunate effect is that I still leave all of cyberspace with a view, however much I manipulate or cover it, of me. As a writer, you sacrifice certain dignities for your friends. You relive certain moments and mortification hoping to provide a solution, or comfort in not finding one. You write to make them feel less alone, or sometimes, to remind them that they feel. I guess I'm trying to make a difference. No, livejournals won't change the world. They probably won't change much, except to blur the line that questions whether people give a shit about our existence...or don't know or care at all. Are you the writer or the reader? In both cases, each character wants to know, wants it known that they're alive. No one should feel that something as inanimate and inhuman as paper is the only thing capable of taking in our thoughts.
So, you choose. Maybe it's a quest for recognition. Maybe it's creating an identity. Somewhere in all of that, what I choose to make readable to the public is most likely up there for a simple reason: I want to say something. And part of me wanted to be heard. We can teach others things, can we not? I'm lucky if I say something you never noticed before. If not, then hopefully, it's helped you through a rough time...or at least kept you entertained. |
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