Saturday, March 29, 2008

owl waltz

motions. walking, sleeping dogs, conversations, frustrations. waking up can still sometimes be such a chore. so foreign. like waking up to outer space. there are so many new faces. and for as long as i've now known them, they're all still so new. everything is always still so new. like it's a really long vacation. as though there are mustard cabinets and world class views waiting for me. sticky notes on bathroom mirrors. hair cuts. sushi pyramids and the best god damn riesling on the planet. motions. waltzes to old and ingrained songs. i go waltzing through the days. waltzing the days away. and i can't help but sometimes feel there's magic in the air somewhere. hiding. going through the motions. floating above us. flying and fluttering around. like hundreds of sparrows. sometimes i get lost just looking up. trying to see it. i get so lost. like waking up to outer space. everything is always still so new. i go waltzing through the days to old and ingrained songs. waltzing the days away.

please bring more yellow birds.

Friday, March 28, 2008

dirtywhirl.

sometimes you get so mired in the marring of the marrow of all that you deem worthy. sometimes you grant so little mercy. maybe to see what can be salvaged from the dirty work of your hands. to see what's strong enough to survive. the pitfalls. the pricey porcelain. the ettarre you wear yourself in. you're so tarred and tiresome, wearing your scrapes and scars to hide who you are. wearing your scrapes and scars to hide. you've scraped and scavenged enough to know. you should know. you should know.

we build impenetrable walls to protect ourselves. we enroll empires of emperors to defend us. and then we wonder why no one's ever knocking on our doors. sometimes we get so mired in the marring of the marrow, as though it could protect us from the damage already done. when in fact, it only damages us itself.

sometimes what's in the past needs to stay there, in order to make the most of what's to come. in order to be better.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

i'm not there

i hate going to gay bars. this statement has made me sound like a self-hating, indignant, snob for a long time now. people will ask why, and i'll give them the answers they want. and sometimes, most of them are true. i do hate homogeneity. i do feel like gay bars are the adult equivalent of high school cafeterias. but the real reason is much harder to articulate in conversation. sometimes it's so hard to be easy.

i have a hard time with objectification. i have a hard time when people say i'm pretty or sexy or hot or handsome. i think, for me, it's because the two worst things to ever happen to me, happened because men thought i was pretty or sexy or hot or handsome. or whatever word you want to use. a pretty piece of meat.

as a child, i was molested for years. and for years, i felt like a total lunatic. i didn't trust anyone. i didn't know how to make and maintain relationships. i couldn't relate to people. and being alone with a group of men was the scariest thing in the world to me. hell, sometimes it still is.

as an adult, i was date raped and given hiv, as a result. the whole time it was happening, he kept telling me how sexy i was. so it's hard to feel good about feeling sexy. it's hard not to cringe when you hear the word.

and so, i hate going to gay bars. places where you're surrounded by men, looking for a pretty piece of meat. looking. ready to pounce. it makes my skin crawl, even though i know it's not quite so nefarious.

they make me feel like a ghost. an apparition, with no name or story or history. like i'm there, but i'm not.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

hands of hammers

torture is so easy to debate. like love. funny, it is. we use one to cope with the other. we head our own telethons, collecting caches of each. something good to rely on, when the goods are going, going, gone. hands of hammers, to nail us in. torture is so easy to debate.

we know ourselves so well. we've known ourselves for so long, and longer still. still sitting, wondering what we could have done, what we've done so wrong, why we couldn't get it right. we face and then erase long lines of logic, we can't afford. we can't afford the faces we replace. we can't afford the mistakes we've made. we try to change, we try to rearrange the events that led us to where we stand, we find ourselves feeling so deranged over the impossible prospect of finding what's already been found. what's already been ingrained. what we've already failed to replace.

we crowd surf off our cliffs. it's all fun. and it's all well and good, when the goods are going, going, gone. love is so easy to debate. like torture. funny, it is. we use one to escape the other. telethons. the lines are ringing. but no one's home. we're all going, going, gone. free to the highest bidder. long lines of logic we bid adieu. long lines of logic we do imbue and debate. confiscated by what is easiest to a free home. to the highest bidder.

we never know when to compromise. we never know if it's us. our faults. if it's our fault. what is free. what is easy. apart from humility. passers-by. crucifixion. fiction. memory. every inch of the long lines we deny.

compromise is so easy to debate. like ourselves. like love. like all the stupid things we've said and done. i've got a cache of each. something to rely on. torture is so easy to debate.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

mostly waving

missteps. rain in showers. late night conversations. over drinks. over coffee. over ourselves. we get over ourselves. we get over what we've been so under. the blues are brown now. and we're mostly waving. we skinny ourselves down, to marginalizations of martyrs mired in the memories we try so hard to forget. we skinny ourselves down for the sake of persistence. for the sake of existing for more than pennies lost in inflation. lost in piles and piles of bigger, brighter, shinier. lost in what is easier to hold. missteps. rain in showers. late night conversations. and we're mostly waving.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

i am here

it was a rough winter. by which i mean, the weather was mild, and still we found ourselves so weathered. for the worst. for the dregs. for the ice we walked upon. i found myself unrecognizable. unsure. unsteady. and at times, unhinged. but really, is there ever a right way to handle anything? when we find ourselves falling, we put our hands out as quickly as we can. it's human nature. i often wonder if i made myself so unrecognizable so that it would seem it wasn't actually me who was holding the hand i was dealt. this is not my life. i don't do these things. i often found it a struggle not to alienate myself. not to push people away. not to lock the door and pull the blinds.

i sought distractions. i threw myself deeply into anything that wasn't rape or hiv or firings or break-ups. i was obsessed with avoidance. but it gets better. it's getting better all the time. i re-read the books i read. i quiet my nerves. i sleep when i ought to. i anchor myself. sometimes all we really need is an anchor. half an hour. to see the ways we've so severely fucked up. to let the tornado run its course. to let human nature run its course.

i tried to replace apples with oranges. because there was one person who could make it all better. there was one person i actually yearned for. yearned to fix it with the simplicity only he knows. to deal me a hand of my own. i realized while on a date, of all places, that we've almost been broken up for as long as we were together. three years is a really long way to go. i sat there evidenced in my own surprise and sadness. trying to recover my fumble. trying to recover the dinner lost to memories and photography and holidays and the fights. the hell that was a good life. and you wonder, how long does it take? how long does it resonate? should this still linger so strongly? should i still be here? i still have a difficult time grasping what's not permanent. it's not permanent. we're all on loan. we're all alone, in one way or another. love and in love and the best of intentions don't change it. don't rearrange it. don't make it easier to sell or harder to buy.

you realize, you do not exist in songs or cards or longing. that you are here. you are here. wherever and however that may be. however far the miles intercept.

i have a job now. i have an appointment with a case worker. i have pork chops and inhibitions and magazines and remote controls and songs and all the things i've always had. the foggy vapors don't change the reality, they just make it harder to see. it just gets so hard to see when we scoop up each other's stars. when we close our eyes to truth. when we lock the doors and pull the blinds.

i am not in songs or fights or refugee camps or dockets or stories or heartbeats hidden in pillows. i am here. here.

Sunday, March 9, 2008

spoons

in the bars, parsonages unto themselves, we undo ourselves. well whiskey weathered for the worst. for the submersible task of being human. of having relived renewals time and time again. of having stories surround us. we drink along the intersection of multiple lines on a singular plane. the intersections whereupon various crash sites have been memorialized, serialized and put to rest. put upon us to be forgotten. bones more like bottles, to drown into the obscurity of long, late nights. we try to abate. but the penance of persistence of memory, has us drunk driving, careening in and out of our emotions and placations. in and out of all the things we try not to say. the clumsy shuffling of words so ingrained in us, their meaning is completely lost. words that simply become idols of failure. it never comes out right. a kiss is just a kiss. and most of the time we can't even recall what we're missing so badly. or it's the sublime second lost amongst months of torture.

in the bars, parsonages unto themselves, we undo one another. tattering our own sails, and worse off, others'. so easily blown off course. it's easy to ignore how fragile we really are. i fell in love once. and i've been digging at the walls with spoons trying to get out.

Monday, March 3, 2008

funhouse mirrors

howdy with every ounce of dignity. it's tricky to stand tall while you're still on your knees...

life has been odd this past week. low key, but eventful. slow, but eventual. i'm figuring things out. i'm getting it straight. i'm worrying less and less about making sure others have fun. ultimately, it's not my responsibility. it's my responsibility to be nice and respectful, not an activities director. or a pimp. if you have the option to be right or nice, be nice. being smarter or hipper or prettier just doesn't compete with being nicer. if there was a moral to this last week, that was it. sometimes you see the parts of yourself you don't care for reflected and exaggerated in others; and it's such an amazing lesson. point of reference.

last night a handful of us went to east end's 70's yacht party. let me just say: best.portland.event.ever. i can't wait for next month's.

bingo tonight. i feel good. but i still miss him. everyday. and i don't hate it so much anymore. it just is. it's being human. it's just all right. it is what it is. everyday. and when i make jokes, they all know. they all know. last night, in the east end shanghai tunnels, with my rocket man sunglasses on, i thought i saw him. my heart fell to the floor faster than my head could grasp the reality of it. it took me by surprise. it just is. and it's okay.