i love you

just got back from montreal. i didn't have the money to go. but i never usually do. 

it felt good to travel alone again. i mean, i wasn't entirely alone. my pals and i rented a car together. but, they all had their own plans. and i had to justify the trip with some sort of article for the paper. 

i attended a conference on police brutality, which i enjoyed immensely. it reminded my sometimes unjustifiably disenchanted heart that the struggle continues. the struggles bleed into each other. and this quiet... just means i can't see it anymore. the reasons for caring at all. for mobilizing. when i feel too privileged to wave a flag about anything. 

i got suspended from welfare again. i submitted my income form well on time, but they lost it it seems. and now my rent will bounce (again) and i will incur the cost. and i'll look like all the stereotypes of someone poor and dealing with mental health issues. and really, i don't need their help in that regard. 

but why do i do that? feel shame? get overcome with fear? slink past my landlord's house, situated too close for my liking.

because i believe it too. i believe that crazy and poor are things i need to distance myself from in order to assure myself i am ...who i want to be. but like my prof molly once said to me in her kitchen, as my heart bled all over her table while we sipped our gin: 'you're not a fuck up, jes. you're just struggling. life is struggle'

and ain't it true. 

nate sent me an email today entitled 'i love you'. all it said was:

"The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community even if their intentions are ever so honest. But the person who loves those around them will create community."

i guess thats what i'm starting to understand. the intelligence i am crafting with the academic mentors around me means very little in terms of any sort of utopic climax. the opportunity is always present to experience community. the politics are important but the love is the institutional memory. 

maybe that's what stephen was getting at with our discussion of Richard III today. the role of the men in the play and that of the women. the women were constantly mourning. and losing. and flailing. and enduring. sure it ended with the gorey death of a king. but that was for entertainment. the real conclusion was this hunger for power could slaughter and force submission to innocence and life but never exist without the tenderness of the womb. 

and its a great metaphor. we can harden ourselves. like richard, this self-loathing hunchback with bloodlust and a beautiful tongue. but we require love. and it kills us.

i'm not the one you want, babe

new semester.

new poetry books. new resolutions. new problems.

old solutions. old(er) age. old habits. 

old anthologies.

listening to a lot of dylan these days. producing some of the best writing i have in years. for arthur. for my academic self. for poetry. it feels good. but it also seems to drain me.

watched this great episode of grey's anatomy today. this opera singer has a cancerous tumour on his lung. he wants the doctors to spare his lung. he says he doesn't want to live without singing. he talks about the suppressing emotion in the real world. in a restaurant when his food is cooked too well done. how he says nothing.

because at night, on his stage, he can kill the waiter and dance on his grave.

he doesn't know how to be ordinary. he's mean. he's mean to his lover. the show posed the question of passion vs. love. your gift and talents - the essence of who you are and what you sing through. pitted against the person who sings through you. 

i've gone out the last couple nights in a row. its a queer socialite world. its a gay scene. it's fun and vicious and exhausting. and i will probably cave and go out tonight. 

but its hard to hide my disenchantment. and my sadness. i am mean. because my pursuit of love in this place is riddled with losses. not rejection of advances but rejection of romance. and words. beautiful words chosen from the branches and held out like berries. juices trickling through my fingers, which i can name anatomically. dripping down to my elbows like an invitation. written in an ancient language barely surfacing in allusive bobs of a body treading indifference in egg-beater legs.

sometimes i want to sleep forever. sometimes i get scared to leave my house. 

my bedroom is beyond the picture of destruction. this usually indicates that i am avoiding dealing with something. 

maybe i'm not allowed to be nice. or something. maybe the closer i claw towards my artistic articulations...maybe the quenching of my desert throat for more words. bigger worlds in intricate words. maybe it has a price. 

i tightened the knobs on the drawers at her party. i was drunk and got triggered by all of it and so i crouched down and took all the knobs off and put them back on tighter. as tight as i could. and i cried quietly as they all got naked and made out in the kitchen. i don't know why. it seems silly. sex can be a handshake. i said that once, i think.

maybe i'm losing it. 

for now, i'll just go lightly on the ground.

poo.

so, i have just entered the realm of spite.

i woke up really angry today. angry at myself mostly, but i needed a target. i needed her to know how i was hurt. and so i lashed out in text. 

and it felt good. but now it feels awful. we had never fought before. never said things like this. and now, they hang in the air like landmines incompletely detonated. 

my brother is sometimes a bit of a loose cannon. or misunderstood. because he's eccentric and eager and stuff. but he is also one of the wisest people i know, and had this to say when i told him about the fight:

'if you see a brother in sin, talk to him in gentleness, considering yourself, lest you be tempted.'

and he's right. who am i to cast the first stone? i can let my mental health and neurosis wrap around me like one giant self-involved bubble sometimes. 

people have told me that they are jealous of my creativity. and my eloquence. but its times like i wish i didnt know how to wield words so artfully. i cut her so deeply. because i know how. i went from never telling the truth to saying too much. 

she's already hurting. but i just wanted her to hear me so badly. 

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.

i hate christmas parties.

christmas. holiday biz. blurrr. burrr.

god, it got cold. 

there's something comforting about the music i used to surround myself with during the holidays. i'm conflicted. relient k, this band from my high school days, is the sort of nostalgia i want sometimes.

but i mean, the god stuff? i dunno how i feel about it all at this point in my life. 

its like hymns. that regina spektor song - human of the year - it crescendos like the hymns i grew up singing often did. and it makes me feel so emotional. same with rk songs like 'i celebrate the day' or the more secular, 'i hate christmas parties'.

but i feel like, there's still a space for enjoying this music. i feel like i'd be a hypocrite if i did it in secret. like the anti-porn people. i read somewhere the the red states in the US statistically consume the most porn. i mean, just own it.

but sometimes its not that simple i guess. we'd rather die for our supposed political convictions than admit folly. 

i don't really know what this post is about. i just miss writing. excavating secrets feels right. 

at this point in my life, things are going well. i love writing for arthur. i love this community. i love making things. i love writing poetry. and get this, i am in-like with school right now. all these things leave me feeling a generally satisfied.

but something in me chimes this sense of disquiet. like my heart is broken but i don't know why or how to go about mending it. or like i've forgotten something. or forgotten what i've forgotten. and my desire for intimacy flares in hot and cold. like i am this consistent dissonance. 

hmmm. i have more to say but haasleton's is closing.

eggnog

as i walk along aylmer toward macs

you

a pair of you 

interrupt my first decisive steps of the evening with questions

of where are you going

are coming to the burning hell

i dance and i

i mull about cover

i mull about mood

and then i leave you with a maybe to mull under the surveillence of flourescant lights

about eggnog

IT'S ON SALE

do i want two for $6?

why doesn't it come in a reasonably priced 2 litre jug?

why two separate cartons

wait, one is only $2.89

can i even drink one?

i certainly don't need $6 worth, even if i am saving

i don't even know how much i'd be saving 

okay i'll get one

and a pepsi

in case i don't feel like the taste of eggnog when i get home

 

i pay the cashier with exact change plus one cent

which i tell her to keep

because i actually hate pennies

full on loathing

they wage wars on my tiny pockets until i cannot bear the fury

any longer

and i grab them in fistfuls and fling them at the sidewalk

the sidewalk who thankfully hasn't pressed charges

yet

 

but i keep this to myself

and give the woman nothing but grins and salutations

that are over-compensating but she doesn't know me well enough

to know the difference

and i think maybe i've made her night

but maybe thats the kind of ego that she

writes angry 'i work at macs poems' about

and fuck,

i wouldn't blame her

and i'd probably hate me too

 

i bound down toward the intersection and i can already see my house

living 'right downtown' instills less the feeling of community

and more the feeling that the villa auto wash is my neighbour who

i should courtesiously have tea with rather than

begrudgingly walk by

 

the streets are damp and it reminds me of my favourite weather

i could say that it is my favourite weather

but with the city nudging us with holiday cheer

by blaring yule tide from the clocktower

-yes, today i found out where that bloody shit is coming from-

i find that i feel less nosthalgic and more

creeped out

even though i cave after 5 minutes in earshot

and hark the herald with the best of them

 

the signs are there

people have their twinkle lights up

we've simulated carolers

and my calender on my macbook desktop

says its almost december

but it feels

like spring

and i know its neither

i'd blame the impending apocalypse if i thought i could actually

handle one more friggin

2012-mayan-calendar mention

but i can't

its just

mild out

 

i get close to my door

and pause before the stairs

i don't even remember if i like eggnog

but for some reason

what i am sure is

that 

it won't be last time i stagger toward my door

cradling a carton of it under my arm

 

i go to the kitchen and grab a glass

a plain glass that my mom says is cheap and the kind that breaks really easily

but i like it because it comes in jes sized narrowness that i can get my hand

around easily and still feel classic about

ain't no sippy cup

it's a glass

i bring the materials to my room even though my apartment is vacant

set things down on my vanity

and proceed to pour

full

and i bring the nog to my lips

staring back at me with each sip

we did this

its pretty good

might taste great with whisky in it

i text emily

hey. bought eggnog. it might taste great with whisky in it

sip

she texts back

i agreeeeeee. i love rum and nog. big D smiley face.

oh

it's rum that you use with eggnog

right

hmm

 

i go back to watching

the best part of watching is my ring

my big ring

all the powerful people had to have worn big rings

king arthur

ghengis kahn

shaq

every thought and movement is punctuated by

the big ring

'yeah i'm going to that party'

puts hand on wall and glances over at big ring

'well when i was young'

cups goblet with big ring hand

'well thats an interesting thought, frances'

leans back and clasps hands

staring casually at big ring

 

i think i've come to rely on it these days

my interchangeable two big rings

this one

and the one that ruby said looked like the mayan...

nevermind

i used to wear this jade one but it broke at a show

i got it when i was 11

me and my brothers all the got the same one

i was the only one who still had it

anyway it broke and its sad but we all hang on to things

and the big rings let me decide on my gender

in my mirror

when i can

 

after a bit of lauryn hill

i decide i only need one glass of nog

and go into the living 

room

my roommate, now home 

asks if i was drinking a carton of milk in my room

no...

its eggnog

i would sue the city if i wasn't so tired.

there was a lobster boy

with very lobster hands

should you look his way

you'd see the fabric of a man

he lived in any town

like all the rest

and smiled with his feelers

and laughed with the jest

but every night

before he went to sleep

in a boiling pot

of water, he would creep

to the edge

screaming out and

into the night

because lo--

this human world was not

is not

made for lobster boys

there were things we could've done

to welcome lobster hands

but we did not

do not-

despite our demands, and so

all of our wishes

of love for this boy,

our watching him

squirm about with joy--meant nothing

when night fell

(and it always fell)

because the screams

would go unreconciled

and his little lobster heart

which we told him to conceal

would shrivel like a prune

in spite of all his zeal

as he wrote his story

onto the air (of the night

not to inspire

or aide in the fight

but) to terrify

future lobster boys

as they lay awake

cascaded in noise-

the harpooned gasps

of a dying thing,

and a city looking

for another king.