Filed under: Miscellaneous
I am laying in my bed, in my old room at my parent’s house. It is dark. I feel a distinct weight on my abdomen and another, yet different, weight on my chest. I become aware, simultaneously, of the reality of my newfound situation: a moderately sized snake lays coiled but alert on my stomach, and a soft white rabbit sits calmly on my chest. I feel instantly overwhelmed by a duality of sensations and desires. My instinct to get away from the snake as fast as possible and the horror seething inside of me at such close proximity to my greatest fear clutches me deeply; however, I am overcome with affection and desire for the rabbit. Ironically, although the rabbit is close to me, I have the desire to attain it, to make it mine; like a little kid at a pet store, or any of us socialized to WANT things to feel complete. I am aware, however, that if I move even slightly the snake will move and because I cannot predict its subsequent actions I realize I am trapped. I remain unmoving, yet wanting to obtain the rabbit, hold it, cuddle it, activate its response to me, to feel loved by it, to love it back. Then, I realize something, almost humorous: the snake is the rabbit’s pet; the rabbit guards it, loves it, they have a mutual bond. I realize that if I want the rabbit it can only be “mine” if the snake comes with it. Here, trying desperately to grasp the conditions of my desires, I remain suspended in stagnant paralysis, not knowing how or when it began nor how it will end. The answer begets the question and so on.
When I begin to wake up, I am in the exact same position as in my dream; I can feel the weight of the snake’s muscled body on my stomach, I am clutched with a horror to breathe lest the snake make an unpredictable move. Then I awaken fully with an enormous gasp, my heart pounding. It is morning, not shadowy and dark anymore. No snake, no rabbit.
This dream has been coming up a lot lately. As I mull over and over the myriad strategies to change my mind and thus my life, I struggle with the tenuous yet comfortable pull of stagnant fear; I try not to give in, I try a lot of things, and I know this time may be different. However, I read something that struck me recently: the notion that we must abandon “hopefulness” in order to recognize the present moment; that “hope”, despite its positive connotations in our dominant cultural values, hinges on escapism, the other side of which is fear. “Hope and fear come from feeling that we lack something; they come from a sense of poverty. We can’t simply relax with ourselves. We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment.” And on a superstructural level, “For those who want something to hold on to, life is even more inconvenient…we are all addicted to hope- hope that the doubt and misery will go away. This addiction has a painful effect on society: a society based on lots of people addicted to getting ground under their feet is not a very compassionate place” (Pema Chodron).
I learned early that the opposite of love is fear, not hate. Hate, I have found, is usually another side in the hall of mirrors that is love, and all the passion capable in the heart. Despite the cheesy pop culture associations with the “love and fear” spectrum in Donnie Darko, I have to say I agree….I learned that fear is oppressive; this can be successfully applied to social hierarchical structures as well as to our most intimate constructions of self and mind. And while fear is oppressive, love is liberating. My dream at age fourteen left first a visceral haunting in my biological body and then left a lasting message of almost satirical relevance. Regardless of the white rabbit’s mythological and iconic significance in various cultures, the first of mine being not Alice in Wonderland but Chinese mythological belief of the white rabbit representing good luck, I understood that the value of the desired creature lay not in attaining it for myself (of course, that is inherently problematic; samsara samsara samsara), but that it hinged on overcoming my fears. If I transform fear I can attain love. Snake and rabbit. Fear and love.
In other news, I found out today that I have access to my $5,000 savings, sans parental consent. (yeah, sometimes I forget im over 18….). while it is intended for school, I do need a a new pair of shoes and a dildo…..
to be continued.
Filed under: Poetry: from the Past to the Future
You’ll bare your bones you’ll grow you’ll pray you’ll only know
When the light appears, boy, when the light appears
You’ll sing & you’ll love you’ll praise blue heavens above
When the light appears, boy, when the light appears
You’ll whimper & you’ll cry you’ll get yourself sick and sigh
You’ll sleep & you’ll dream you’ll only know what you mean
When the light appears, boy, when the light appears
You’ll come & you’ll go, you’ll wander to and fro
You’ll go home in despair you’ll wonder why’d you care
You’ll stammer & you’ll lie you’ll ask everybody why
You’ll cough and you’ll pout you’ll kick your toe with gout
You’ll jump you’ll shout you’ll knock you’re friends about
You’ll bawl and you’ll deny & announce your eyes are dry
You’ll roll and you’ll rock you’ll show your big hard cock
You’ll love and you’ll grieve & one day you’ll come believe
As you whistle & you smile the lord made you worthwhile
You’ll preach and you’ll glide on the pulpit in your pride
Sneak & slide across the stage like a river in high tide
You’ll come fast or come on slow just the same you’ll never know
When the light appears, boy, when the light appears
Filed under: New Words, Definitions and Other Things
lexis: the vocabulary of a language, as distinct from its grammar; the total stock of words and idiomatic combinations of them in a language; lexicon.
euphemism: An agreeable word or expression substituted for one that is potentially offensive, often having to do with bodily functions, sex, or death. For example, rest room for toilet, lady of the evening for prostitute, pass away for dying.
(the) customer: is not always right.
(the) landlord: 1. a person who owns and leases land, buildings, etc. 2. a person who owns or runs an inn, lodging house, etc. 3. a landowner. 4. one who, given the money is in their hand, assumes the responsibility of regulating the moneygiver(s) lifestyle, instilling anxiety into one’s domestic life; entrenching their intimate space, possessions, habits, time schedules, and even long-term plans with a sense of surveillance and permanent ephermality (ie. “the lord giveth and the lord taketh away”).
infantalise: to keep in or reduce to an infantile state; to treat or regard as infantile or immature.
exoticize: the act of romanticizing elements of something, like a culture, that is foreign to oneself.
asexual: free from or unaffected by sexuality.
la petite mort (french): literal translation- ”little death.” The physical and emotional sensation experienced at the peak of sexual excitation, usually resulting from stimulation of the sexual organ. (in english, referred to as ”orgasm.” )
rape (english): psycho-spiritual translation- “little death.” in french: le viol. to me: worse than death.
tarnation: The act of damning or the condition of being damned. Used to express anger or annoyance. damnation; hell (used as a euphemism).
antequate: to make obsolete, old-fashioned, or out of date by replacing with something newer or better. as in, to antequate a loaded statement made about a friend to said friend in order to symbolize one’s ability to rise out of arrogant habits and recognize, with humility, that we can be very different from that which others project onto us; we can appear surprising, unpredictable, or even blasphemous when presenting aspects of ourselves that do not necesarily fit into others’ comfortable constructions of us, that compromise their perceptive security. this can cause them discomfort; this can cause us discomfort when attempting to process the presence of others in our lives as fluid realities, changing and free to do so; it is not our right to privilege our settled, comfortable perceptions of others over their freedom to grow. let there be discomfort, let us test each other, let us validate each others’ right to be free and changeable and magnificent! let us antequate that inside us which clings desperately to that which makes sense; antequate sense!
all: is full of love.
Filed under: New Words, Definitions and Other Things
brevity: with quickness, short duration.
levity: lightness of mind, character, or behavior; lack of appropriate seriousness or earnestness.
Filed under: New Words, Definitions and Other Things
succinctly: concise; expressed in few words; to the point; terse
integrity: honor, respectability, moral and ethic character
penultimate: next to last, the penultimate scene of the play
jerk: spicy, a variety of sharp or spicy flavors or characteristics
magic: the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with will; to manifest a vision through conscious and intentional action and willpower.
mitigate: to lessen in force, to soften
atonement: satisfaction or reparation of a wrong doing or injury
knowledge: is limited. imagination encircles the world
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Moonlighting: to work at an additional job after one’s regular, full-time employment, as at night. |
Time: a game played beautifully by children.
Filed under: Poetry: from the Past to the Future
Give me your starved, your hungry heartbroken,
your flesh of gold and metalloid, tender and
fixed with soul. Give me the antiquity of that lost Twentieth Century,
all our forgotten fashions and spellbound modernities,
Give me the rebel, sold out on your doorstep,
Filed under: Poetry: from the Past to the Future
My Western heart found a home on the warm Bronx floor with you, floorboards
rattled by noxious love and Latin beats on the Avenue-
when the west gets too warm for sheets at night, I remember the floor of the Bronx
and the still dawn, swollen with the boats of many men
and all the planes that flew above us then
why we were in love
why did it
take til now
but then in the secret dawns of the city we knew
what it meant, and there I was once more,
my Western war sleeping peaceful on the warm Bronx floor
eyes summered by the great boulevards, I was a stranger then-
visitor to the boats of New York men
Filed under: Poetry: from the Past to the Future
What you don’t know is that
when I died I heard
a song that sounded like the sun,
a bright day aching to be held, a citrus flesh explosion.
That’s what I was thinking when all you
so small and fresh waited
unknowingly.
It’s like this, she said: a utopia in international waters where we
grow our own food in the ocean,
a fleet of houseboats sustaining us into the rest of our lives. I thought, we could die tomorrow, I thought
the End is Near, the Times are Right, the World is Ready
but will I live to see that future golden day?
It’s like this, she said: an island nearby, we can order our TP there, we can
pick up our bulk grains and coconuts. They’ll know us all
by name.
You and me, we enjoy each other amidst it all. We went out into the cold, you were
so genuine and pure out there beside me on the
stormy seaweed surfer stairs into the ocean. We could have walked right into it-
the rats were fat and scurried between rocks.
This is the town I chose, we are here,
it is 2 am and dark, we are still bracing but
you are so much stronger
than you
think
and
what you don’t know is that when I died I was still
fucked up but the songs were lovely and I felt lighter.
I heard a song that sounded like the
moon
or the simple turning of a sadly weighted planet,
an insomniac’s sonnet to Deep Space
and
what you don’t know is that when I died the song was singing
through me and everyone saw it on my face and in my hands,
and we were all ok
These days, I am content knowing my gifts do just what they ought to,
I am content with the songs that remind me of you
as we walk the neighborhood streets
away
from the chaos and bullshit, your brown eyes
were watching, the wind and rain whipped at our mouths,
we kept going and it was good to get out of the house
where the candles burned on and on
keeping our friends company all night.
It was good
to get out. This is only
the last day of February, my love.
It’s like this, she said: a place to be free, growing our own food,
being together, getting older,
water and ocean everywhere, no government no cops,
a simple turning of things, a place to be free.
What nobody knows is that when I died
I heard a song that sounded like the sun,
a bright day aching to be lived, a sonnet to Deep Space,
everyone heard it,
and we were all ok
