Wednesday, December 30, 2009

zepplin

so i've been at home for a week now. home as in uxbridge. the hometown. the parents. the brothers. 

i told everyone i'd get in and get out. can't stand this town, i'll be back in a few days, don't worry.

but i'm still here. and its curious, to me.


my hair is getting long. i'm wearing pigtails right now. for some reason i feel like they make me look older in this dykey way. i like it.

its been 2 years since i first met the last person to seriously break my heart. and i finally feel like stella gettin her groove back. which is exciting. like deep inhalations. but also scary. like mourning the loss of a loss. or the loss of a focal point. or something. 

i used her as a muse in a lot of my poetry and photography. she occupied this part of my mind that dipped into creativity, and sorta wrapped herself around major synapses in a way that made this amputation tedious and painstakingly slow. 

i wondered how i would know i was over her. like actually know. you tell your friends (the ones who are sick of you mentioning her name to the point that you actually take a breath, or a sip of something, or mumble before her name) that 'no guys. this time. it's done. i'm over it.' but sometimes, lying is just easier. 

but i know i'm there now. it's not spiteful. it's not premature. it's the imagining 'i'll never love anyone else like this' conclusion; when you reach a point where that doesn't bother you. that doesn't make you ache. doesn't conjure memories of touches, images of glances, remembrances of the smell of her clothes on you. her skin. her laugh. 

it's when none of those things adds up to a smirk. or a sigh. or a second thought. it is in the past. 

i have these two papers due for my advanced american lit class, which was phenomenal by the way. fuck, i'm going to miss it. it was a half year 4th yr credit, and it spanned work from auden, to Fraser, to West Side Story, Company, Manhattan, Patti Smith, blues songs, Cole Porter, Lost in Translation, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and Tennessee Williams- all looking at the representation of love. romantic love. 

the papers don't need to be more than 5-6 pages. but you know me. and love. i wanna say something that means something. and this semester, well thanks in part to this course, i've been reflecting about love and my place in it too much to actually get concrete ideas on paper. but in this last week, i feel more ready than i have in the last three months.

auden has this great fucking poem that reminds me of the hole i was stuck in (see above post-pinage). it's called the more loving one:

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well

That, for all they care, I can go to hell,

But on earth indifference is the least

We have to dread from man or beast.


How should we like it were stars to burn

With a passion for us we could not return?

If equal affection cannot be,

Let the more loving one be me.


Admirer as I think I am

Of stars that do not give a damn,

I cannot, now I see them, say

I missed one terribly all day.


Were all stars to disappear or die,

I should learn to look at an empty sky

And feel its total dark sublime,

Though this might take me a little time.


but on earth indifference is the least i have to dread. that line. that fucking line. kills me. its that night in the alley when i was choking back tears as she ran after me, wrapping her arms around me and throwing her head back to laugh. silly jes. running away in the snow. finding a dead end. it's my petulance as a cheap ploy for attention as she is fawned over. its the poetry. its too much goddam poetry. 

this poem is comforting somehow to me. not only realizing that i woulda found good scotch-sipping company in auden's faggy ass (we are such kindred spirits. sigh), but that he knows, objectively, the torture inflicted on his heart. and that it will pass one day. but for now he's in the thick of it and not ready to see the sublime of an empty sky, so he writes a verse. he writes a verse. he writes a verse.

the poetry is never wasted, even when the heart is. 

oh my god, it's after 4am. i have been up late these days. i've missed being up this late, and not because i'm drunk somewhere. or just pouring myself into bed. or hooking up. 

but just, being awake because my mind is going. and feeling okay. and maybe creating.

like this painting i've been working on. gosh, i haven't done a painting since summer. i started it a couple days ago. it's a 20x24. good size. peachy abstract background. patches of red and pale blue. very visceral. i plan to paint the structural drawings of the USS Akron, a zepplin circa 1931. 

it feels good to be painting again.


1 comment:

  1. Thanks for this post, Jes. I've been thinking of what 2010 has in store for me too. In March it will be two years since I met a man I loved and a man who seriously broke my heart too. How do I feel about it? I feel just like you do!
    Thanks for posting the poem too. I like posts with poems in them!
    Many good vibes for the year ahead. *HUGS*

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