Saturday, December 05, 2015

on the road with Gil

the time of being a culture people sponge is coming to a close. after the solstice, in the new year, I will curl into reflection, back to written words,worlds, follow pen and paper trails to make the story.

I will follow up with my own ideas, goals, visions. don't let them down.
I will follow up with new friends and comrades, keep connecting with the visionaries and the big beautiful planners. how can we all connect?

seeing myself as a connector: bring people toward each other, facilitate meeting of minds and ideas for bigger goals.
an organizer: making events come alive, planning for the big beautiful. MAKE it happen, no more waiting.
this was always the goal: to create a beautiful world. to be my own ugly in it. to transform what ugly does.

Friday, November 27, 2015

what happens when you go home for the holidays

​why can't i enjoy anything
why does it feel like i can't stop being mean
why is nothing ever right

Sunday, November 15, 2015

don't trust other people with your ideas.
don't trust other people to know better than you about your things.

i would've ordered a new charger, i would've shipped the old one to east wind.
i knew the package would never make it in time, we'd be stuck here waiting or have to leave without it.
we waited an extra day and we're still leaving without it.
so i finally ordered new goddamn gear this morning, which i should've done immediately when i realized my idiot self left the charger in ohio.


if you had told me you shipped the whole thing back to acorn, i could've ordered a new battery as well as a charger. now i'm down to one.
yes it's better than nothing.
yes really there's no one to be mad at but myself.

and then why am i SO upset? what makes me take this SO seriously?
(and yet not serious enough, i could've done so much more.)
((and yet so serious that i build it up and up until i'm too paralyzed to shoot))

3 and a half months after i've started this journey and i feel totally unaccomplished and broken down.
at first i had a lot of ideas for what i wanted to capture, my vision of my role.
you all wanted heads talking with your own ideas regurgitated. nothing new, nothing true.
after i adjusted to the reality, i still had lots of ideas-- what i thought would capture people's attention, funny videos and zines and things.
you all crushed my ideas and i went ahead and finished killing them off.

so where am i now?
i felt so good about what i gathered at the midden. not great, but okay.
i felt so good until alex said "let's do another interview once you've fleshed out your thoughts more."
i felt so good until rejoice asked if i got exterior shots, after we'd left the state, after knowing that they took the house tour without me.
i felt so good until my dumb ass left my battery and charger in the kitchen, right there in the wall, right where someone else plugged it in.
i felt so good when i found mike's phone charger and packed it for him, how thorough i am! (a lie, i felt irritated that dustin had taken his phone and left the charger here, full well knowing this was mike's because he borrowed it, this is part of our party, this comes with us. and even now i feel irritated, surely someone in our crew saw the battery there in the wall, someone knew this thing should not stay in ohio.)
i felt so good when this journey was an adventure, when i had a purpose, how i was alive and living.

where am i now?
i'm so mad at myself about the battery that i'm not present, not engaging, not actively asking questions or trying to learn new people.
and i'm feeling like a grump, irritated by everything, constant frown.
i feel myself faking it trying to let loose and it feels awful.
i hope i don't have to go back on meds.




back on the road, we arrive at Possibility Alliance just in time to catch a tour with a student group from Truman College. we're just a couple minutes late, so a visitor walks us out to a patch of grass where the rest of the group is gathered in a circle, popcorn-sharing the things we want to change about our world.
Ethan wears a red baseball cap and leads animatedly, barely able to keep up with himself and the long strings of ideas he wants to share. some of the kids seem already bored or jaded, or maybe i just can't tell what people are feeling anymore.
it feels good to sit in the grass, in the sun, to watch the cow and feel the eyes of other humble humans who are not (yet) communards, with a whole different kind of jadedness.
as idealistic or radical or "crazy pants" as ethan might be, i'm still drawn into his words, jogging along after the chasing thoughts, i'm feeling this.
"we look at screens more often than we look in each other's eyes. humans spend more than half of their waking hours looking at screens."
i'm wasting my life, it's clear.
ethan is adamant that we shouldn't feel too guilty about our own habits up to this point; that will only lead to more suffering, more pain. self-hate is not the solution.
this is a hard one to remember.
i can feel the others in my party are not so sold. rejoice has gotten this tour speech twice already and dustin's already checked out and "hopeless" (his words, his goal) at 22.
as much as i'm feeling the impact of these stories, of being here, i can't get rid of the nagging consciousnesses of the other side.
it's funny what impressions i have of the different communities before i get there. i guess i thought i wouldn't be interested in this place -- why, exactly? i can't recall now, and i can't remember details, just a vague impression.
maybe because they have a "gift economy" which in Point A world is not as interesting or radical as income-sharing and therefore is null.
maybe because it's just a small farm with one family in the middle of nowhere, missouri.
but being here, maybe it's the college tour, i get the sense that they're engaged on a broader level than most of the other communities i've met. they host quaker meetings, craft nights, work days, straw bale building workshops and permaculture trainings. they just got back from a rally (??) in detroit for water rights.
and they've done all this with ONLY a landline telephone and no other electricity.
so what do we think we're doing???
at every community i visit, i consider living there, if only for a moment. on this day, in light of all this mess, i wonder what my life would be like without electricity, without screens. how important are they and how much do i need them, really?
maybe ethan is a crackpot and an idealist but isn't that what i've always wanted to be too?
he asks us this question i've heard a lot lately-- if you could do anything, be anything, if someone waved a magic wand and you could have your dream, what would it look like?
i never do know.
i think that's a major part of my problem.
it changes on the daily or it floats just beyond me, a shifting shape in the fog.
what would happen if i cut it all out, the distractions and the phoneys and the plastics? would i find any answers?
what if i learned all new arts, what if i learned a whole new way to be myself?

i might want some of my modern things.
i might want a manual typewriter.
i might learn to build creatures and make worlds and take photos on film to tell my stories.
i certainly will need my cat.
i don't know what to do about that.

for that moment when i imagine myself in whichever community, i can be anything, i have a whole beautiful life there for myself.
and every life, in every land, is always different.


i listen so much, it's one of the few things i'm really good at, that i value about myself.
so often i hear you before you've spoken. sometimes i can answer before you've said it -- and then you interrupt me to tell me your thought and it was exactly what i thought. why can't you hear me??


"Pandora was pretty dopey dude, she had pretty simple instructions. just don't open the box! stupid bitch."

make this man stop butchering this song.

Friday, November 06, 2015

thin skin

this is why my thin gs are lost.

this is why i'm not allowed.

i tried to organize the zines and pamplhets; they were in miples that made sense.
i walked away.
i walked away and that's my own fault.
i walked away and came back to a beautiful clean table.
a clean table and all my piles all my attempts to organize dismissed.
why did i ever bother
why did i even exist
i'm sorry that i have to make piles to feel alive. i don't know where to go where that's okay.
i don't know where i can give anything that gets credit.
i want to be yr legit diy librarian.
yr diy archivsit
yr diy therapist

and yet get into an argument:
you need to shave your legs.
OH DO I
i can't understand although she says it's not personal, it isn't me, she would say it to anyone
can i exist even this close to the status quo
YES WE'RE SAYING THESE WORDS
can i exist without being judged?
no. i'm okay with that.
i'm a judge too it's cool.
can i exist without being made a fool?
okay but you decided that'
the clown was the object
how can i be a clown without being destroyed?
that's for the people to decide
you're the joke
you play the part
and see how the audience reacts
you can't decide how it all shakes down

they ask if you know your skin is thin
if you know your size and scale

Monday, November 02, 2015

november horoscope, c/o autostraddle:
Self-love is the killer, huh? It’s so easy to love humanity, even when they’re messing up the world–or at least your group of friends who are trying a little harder–but when it’s just you rattling around in your own head it’s harder to feel tolerant, much less enthusiastic, about what you find. You can rely on the love of your sweethearts or closest friends, but only so far. Sooner or later, you’ve got to face that inner sense of being something strange and alien. One tip: remember that love doesn’t need an excuse. You are loveable because you are here with us, offering something this world has never seen. Whether you can feel it yet, you’re being held and seen.

i needed that. really.

Thursday, October 29, 2015

tower dream

dreamed this dumb boy was my partner but when we walked through the gate at the backyard party, he still followed around the other dumb boy like a helpless puppy. "I thought you were *my* boyfriend ??" 
then I climbed the tallest tower, metal and open with a slightly creaky sway. at the top, some of my cozy familiar things I think. i lay on my stomach facing out and got off in the night wind. i have to climb back down but I'm distracted by a pair of mostly white cats with weird black markings, brother/sister? and a couple young guys creeping around the bushes and pouting up and laughing. clearly they've seen me but I'm not particularly phased. i have to get up and start moving again but I'm so exhausted, I feel tired to the point of craziness, like I will certainly fall and maybe something worse if I keep going. 
what happens? I just wake up from my nap and realize I'm still exhausted. 
don't worry, honey, skip the meeting. skip the party too, if that's what you need. skip life and stay in bed; just sleep. 

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

what's that confused look in your eyes?

we didn't talk for 70 hours after our 24-hour text conversation turned argument turned ? i had to stop it, i needed space. i had gotten so stressed and anxious that the break felt really good, better than i expected. of course, it was an insanely busy weekend, between Quercus work party, art party, party party, packing seeds, richmond zine fest, after party, dancing at the dyke bar, Food Not Bombs, and dishes for miles. so really, there wasn't any time to miss you.
even now i'm still trying to digest the "fight" and how it happened and when it went wrong, but it's so hard to parse it out later, even though it's all written right there in green text on this screen.
you had been low for days and of course i know something about what that's like, so i did my best from a distance.... mostly by responding to yr texts with comfort and care, or so i thought.
but it's really hard for that type of communication (you express low feelings, i try to comfort you) to be the only thing happening in our relationship. i'm not saying that's all it ever is, but sometimes it does happen for days at a time, and that's really draining for me. i'm not saying that you shouldn't share with me or express yourself. i just want us to have better balance because most of the time i feel like i'm carrying you.
the worst part is that during this discussion, you insinuated that i DON'T support you and that i don't listen enough. i fucking hate that you would feel that alone, maybe that you're so far down there that you can't even hear me.
but actually that's my main issue. a lot of the time i really don't feel like you hear me and when i expressed that, you actually told me it wasn't the issue, "it's not about not hearing you." i'm sorry, honey, but you don't get to decide that. then you say i don't actually ask for support and you're basically admitting the problem: because when i ask, you don't hear me. this is what frightens me and makes me anxious and sad. i don't know where we're going if we have to keep having the same conversation, if we can literally have this argument for 24 hours and not reach any conclusions. and i am so terrified of hurting you, offending you, breaking you, that i don't even think i can tell you any of this.
what really sucks is that i'm so fucking happy here; this weekend was the best i've felt in a long time..... and i've been antidepressant free for almost a month now, and i can't believe i still feel this good. i see a beautiful life for myself here and i want you to have this beauty too, but i fear, i feel we're floating, veering off in different directions. my needs are not your needs, and vice versa. a couple weeks ago, i asked what you wanted for your life, what you dreamed for the future, what your happy looks like. i don't actually remember what i asked you, but i remember your answer was so different from mine. you want stability and contentment, a good job with enough money to meet your medical needs and support a middle class lifestyle. you want the american dream, and i want to dismantle it.


Tuesday, September 29, 2015

(found mind-mapping notes from Acorn, fall 2015)

create new + better culture

learn to dance again
learn to write (creative non-fiction)
learn to build puppets
learn art history
learn animation
theatre

DIY archivist / folklorist
-document ephemeral culture and dying culture
-oral histories, folk traditions

be a better clown
unlearn
learn new histories
tell untold stories
-write historical fiction movie scripts
-animate with morgan
vaudeville revival / traveling variety show
make zines
write letters
anachronism - move backward from electronics + technology

Friday, September 25, 2015

the veggie soup has chicken stock, donated pre dumpster so technically it's freegan. I almost eat it but I almost cry at the thought. I'd rather go hungry I decide. worse things have happened. do no harm or whatever. plus I've already had one meal today which is better than other days. why is food so fucking hard?? especially on this trip where food is a major theme, a center point of community. am I being dumb by sticking so hard to my vegetarianism? even GPaul the vegan eats piles of dumpster meat. am I just being stubborn? what products are more evil? I'm smoking newports for fucks sake. I'm already ruined. already I'm wondering if I can convince Lando to stop on the road for subway or Taco Bell or some such garbage because I'm clinging so hard to this one thing: I dont eat animals. I just can't do it. maybe this is absurd but it's been over seven years now and it may be the truest thing I've committed to. so I sit outside and smoke and think and feel hungry and wonder if this is a condition of my privilege.  yes, probably. and is it rude for me to abstain in this place, in this broken city with its food deserts, after these good people have housed me and helped me and even thanked me for just taping them?

but of course i can't. i munch on home fries and bits of tofu, and reagan gives us granola for the road, the ridiculous road of me and lando and a new friend named steph, and somehow it takes us 6 hrs to do a normally 3 hour drive. but of course we make it, despite it all, and acorn is now warm and familiar and weirdly enough people are happy to see me.

Thursday, September 24, 2015

male call

this part is just about me. (is it?) i expect to be treated with respect by my colleagues.
maybe i haven't always, maybe i don't always think i deserve anything.
i feel like none of the men on this project have offered to get to know me, or have tried to listen.
do you hear yourselves??????
you'll say you want open communication, but i don't actually feel that.

you have all interrupted me repeatedly. (at some point i just stop trying to talk. i'm not alone in this.)
you have not trusted me, especially steve, especially about tech stuff.
you've told me you want me to create/propose my own projects, but i'm shot down mid-pitch (pax) or your ideas for what the project wants/needs are so specific, there's no room for my input/vision.
you want to know what's going on, but when i try to have real talk with pax, he says he "doesn't care" (LITERALLY) and just wants to keep talking.
you want me to listen to your theories and philosophies and your version of the story, even when it's not yours. this is not the way i learn or the way i communicate with the world.
you want me to be flexible but you want me to
you think i'd be wasting time at BFF without a strict video schedule set up, but no one introduced me to anyone or set up interviews ahead of time at Ganas, Twin Oaks, or Acorn.
you want me to participate but you don't treat me like a fellow organizer. (at meetings, i'm invisible. you skip right over me in the go-around without a second thought.)
you touched me without my permission the second time we met. you touched my leg when we were alone in the car and it was creepy. then in your video interview, you brag about your consent culture and how important it is, how it's the ONLY orientation at acorn. (by the way i didn't get an orientation at acorn, and i felt both forgotten and resented for the entire three weeks.)
you say i can decide, that i can say no, but if i lean that way, there's immediately pushback to convince me otherwise. am i allowed to make my own decisions or not? will my decisions be respected?
you say our styles are different, you liken mine to nature-style documentary where i show up at the scene and just shoot what's happening, whereas your style is to schedule and organize ahead of time (oh thanks what a great tip, i'm just such a fucking messy idiot) but you forget that i do. not. know anyone. i don't have contact info. i don't have an "in" and in these people's position, i wouldn't necessarily trust me. (see ex. "stranger with a camera")
you tout yourselves as so radical, so egalitarian, then WHY ARE YOU A BUNCH OF WHITE MEN and when will you stop making racisit comments and joking about rape and talking down to women?
do NOT touch me. do NOT pretend we are friends.
you fucked my trust when i told you a really personal story and i thought maybe you would get to know me, but you used it as a factoid, another trivial point of information, to STRANGERS, people i had just met.
you don't know my hurts.
you don't know me at all.
your whole new world is a frat house.



three bad situations that made me cry. so embarassing to be that pathetic in front of my psuedo-bosses, but the weird part is that it wasn't acknowledged, at the time or later. maybe i'm more subtle than i think... but even then, didn't you see that i was upset? how i shut down and walked away? did you wonder why? or did you just assume it's because i "can't handle" your "style" aka your white straight male BULLSHIT.

literally feeling like maybe i just can't work with men.
i am astounded by how radical you think you are. i want to laugh but it's actually scary.





the org

expected internal calendar, contact list
--i never know where anyone is going to be or where I'M going to be. plans seem to change every day without me knowing.

seems to be so much theoretical / hypothetical -- imo, too much.


what the hell has been happening since 2013? i don't see any work being done to connect point a to other local orgs, i don't see any outreach. this looks like a circle of friends at best, a clique at worst. and you're literally trash talking other people's projects, but what the fuck makes you so much better than them?

was there ANY media plan/strategy before i arrived. you say you "talked about it" but did you actually decide anything?
what do you ACTUALLY expect of me? and is there ANY consensus on that?




i watch you talk in circles. i watch you preach to the choir. i watch the women get cut off mid-sentence, or never get the space to speak in the fist place.

STRAIGHT WHITE CIS MEN are leading us again, hurray! what would we do without them and their big brilliant brains!

Friday, September 18, 2015

i should be better, glow more glitter
not blurry squinting hunching monster
new holes in my dress + my head
i've stayed and i'll stay here for hours
smoking up these papers
until i stumble walk the bottle back to bed
never eat, oversleep
drink till you can't remember where you put your feet
they found you fallen in the street
all blood + piss + fleas + meat
immature + undercooked
never had a chance you took

Thursday, September 17, 2015

the house is not so toppling and scattered as i remembered. nothing wrong with that inherently, only that i am, and i thought i'd feel more comfortable here this time.
nope.
what i remembered was cramped, leaning hallways and a huge common room with furniture near piling on top of itself, people scrambling not to spill out of their chairs.
what changed? did i see too many stars in virginia? was the world there too wide, with the fields and neverending dirt roads? has everything just expanded?
in fact, the halls are long, too long, and the downstairs commons goes on and on, i'll never make it to the kitchen from the front porch. i'll never get to eat.

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

silly song

has a very upbeat sweet sound in my mind.
why don't you kill yourself
you don't deserve to live
you don't deserve to die
you don't deserve anything
you're doomed to crash and burn
and smash down everything you want to have and hold
you'll never find your home
nothing's left
burn one more

Monday, August 31, 2015

two nights dreamed of tall water.
the first, riding atop the tallest waves in train cars, saving the people and carrying the cats in boxes. gracie lou who close to my chest, while i call orders over the tumult.
and the second, on the tallest balcony, the tidal wave encroaching, worrying over the people and herding the cats into tubes. willikers the prominent tuxedo in a tunnel of black cats.
and that night, in the dark of the conscious world, the saloon deck of the ferry to manhattan, leaning over the railing, willing myself not to drop in.
and then the train with river wild, and finally seeing rex across broadway, in front of roma's pizza. we dance the distance until the lights change. our reunion on the streets and at the overcrowded dyke bar, cash only. but friday night and too many straight boys and overpriced weak whisky pushes us to the corner store, the tiny park, the street. rex doubts his inner queens compass and modern convenience leads us astray. we never do find the water, let alone the pier. what we find is a strangely deserted bright street with a rock. without protest, the rock lets us talk and sit and drink and piss and nearly fall asleep right on it, until rex gets us going, back to the subway and the walk through the garden apartments to the cluttered cozy jackson heights townhouse where we can whisky steelie sleep through the morning. except that rex has a bus to boston at dawn, so i oversleep alone, try to slip out quietly, but am thwarted by his mom, nourished with apple fritter, sweet talk, and decaf. the journey back to staten island takes two meandering hours, and the ferry is soothing this time.
ganas is a strange green maze with its own sidewalks, raised up from the street; is this the real city? there is a palpable tension between old and new, the steadfast 60s communards and the invigorated younger set, fresh for revolution. "it's time to turn, to revolve, it's always time," we say, as we huddle on our porches, sneak a smoke, scurry when we hear them coming.
and look, we do share the bounty! from the house pantry, jaclyn makes tunafish pizza with bacon grease white sauce, plus tomato cheese just for me. the days drift in the green heat; is this city real?
wednesday rolls around and i still don't make it up in time for the 730am planning meeting, especially not from the extra house at the bottom of the hill. i still can't handle time, i'm one step slow all day, and even run late to rex's show at the new york city bureau of human services queer division, and the building was even more swanky than the name. everyone is beautiful gayz and i'm so proud to see rex his cap his bow tie his perfect poems and py arrives right at the end, during the glitter rap dance party, the queer cafe unsure how not to shake. pyrite is a vision in the village, vegetarian and mostly sober, until we spot the stella. "it's the gay beer," we're told. we fold into a flock, a glistening smoking parade brigade, back to the dyke bar, cash only, whisky bourbon on special.
i'm sorry if i rambled your ear off, spun off too far, gave you too many smokes, spent all yr money on drinks, spit your powdered supplement on the ground, cried on your shoulder, hugged you too many times, kicked you for old times' sake. but we did laugh, and we remembered the ghosts, and we almost walked that secret path.
but it twisted and you left us underground in the sick yellow light, where we continued to follow that dolorous brick road through the tunnel, to the dive with the whisky and the filthy foggy back room. it's no wonder i can't remember what was said. but we make it our home, for now, and i could live here forever until rex persuades me to leave, he in his infinite wisdom, with his mind on new york time, and again quit my pointless flirting and i'll hold my brother's hand on the train to queens, and again i'll share your bed until morning, but this time i have a bus, and two ferrys, and ten trains to catch to make richmond tonight, where i'll hitch a ride to twin oaks with comrades, albeit strangers, friends who have never met.

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

i feel like i may have broken your heart without even trying, without doing anything, and it kills.
don't you know that my bones are crying, that i ache with loneliness too? that i hate it?

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

The Keep is a bright and cheery collective house in one half of a three-story duplex in DC's Park View neighborhood. With only six bedrooms, at first the place strikes me as a little small for a commune, but with a spacious kitchen and common area for the entire ground floor, I soon see why this is the Point A DC headquarters. The eight members of the Keep are young, vibrant, beautiful folks, bubbling over with sexual energy and crazy infectious laughter. More than a few of them went to Oberlin College, and it turns out there are mutual friends among us. It seems so silly to realize that the world is so impossibly small, but then again, of course it is.

I arrive just in time to be whisked away to a sold-out punk show, where two of my newest favorite bands are playing, and these kids just happened to have one extra ticket.... fate! A local electronic artist opens the show, followed by Girlpool, a duo who appear to be barely out of high school... reminds me of my first tour with SV way back in the day, in the summer following our senior year. Frankie Cosmos closes the night, the first show on her tour, so the band seems a little wobbly and still getting into a groove, but they still sound great to me. I buy their CD and the six of us somehow stuff ourselves back into Feonix's compact car to be driven back home....

"Home," rather, as I'm only here for a week, and the little patch of this place that is "mine" is a piece of memory foam mattress on the floor, in a row of mattresses on the floor, in a ridiculously low-ceilinged attic with no AC. This bizarre room is known as the Garret, an almost-4th floor, and it's where most of the Keep's numerous guests stay, including me and GPaul. Upon arrival, you will be ushered up the three flights of stairs (the last one little more than a wooden ladder) and you will hunch, crawl, or scuttle to the floor mattress of your choosing-- the ceiling is only 4 feet tall. But there are clean linens, towels, and condoms, all provided free of charge by your generous hosts. In the morning, you'll see there is one skylight window, higher the rest of the ceiling, where you can stand up to put on your pants. You're the last one awake, so turn off the fan and be grateful that even without it, this feels better than Austin in August.

The sunflowers sway in the tiny front garden, and the Keep is its own little universe in what is otherwise a pretty rough, run-down neighborhood. The world beyond the porch is a harsh one, and at night, we hear the people and the sirens screaming in the street. At night, the rats come out, and I see who the sunflowers really belong to.

Thursday, June 11, 2015

you're so fragile, sometimes I don't know how to hold you

You are so fragile, sometimes I don't know how to hold you.  I want to be a soft place for you in a hard world, but sometimes  I find myself craggy, a beach of broken glass + pebbles instead of  sand. You don't deserve to wash up here.  When I feel lost + broken, I pull away to spare you, but it apparently  just makes things worse. We both fall backwards into silence + despair.  I want you to reach for me, but I've lost you too, now we're both gone.  How many times this has happened, how we talk it out, but begin again.  I'm afraid that we're too broken to not break each other.  Or I'm a bird, and you're a fish, and air + water will never mix.  Like you can never hear the bug + cricket song, sometimes I feel like you  can't hear me. Like nothing I say will settle. How can I make  you hear me with a shell to your ear, and dreams of having fins  in the ocean, when all I can offer you is a craggy windy brutal beach.  How I try to make you happy but I only make you cry.  How you're longing for the ocean but I can only give you sky. You are so fragile, sometimes I don't know how to hold you. I want to be a soft place for you in a hard world, but sometimes I find myself craggy, a beach of broken glass + pebbles instead of sand. You don't deserve to wash up here. 
When I feel lost + broken, I pull away to spare you, but it apparently just makes things worse. We both fall backwards into silence + despair.
I want you to reach for me, but I've lost you too, now we're both gone. How many times this has happened, how we talk it out, but begin again.
I'm afraid that we're too broken to not break each other.
Or I'm a bird, and you're a fish, and air + water will never mix.
Like you can never hear the bug + cricket song, sometimes I feel like you
can't hear me. Like nothing I say will settle. How can I make
you hear me with a shell to your ear, and dreams of having fins
in the ocean, when all I can offer you is a craggy windy brutal beach.
How I try to make you happy but I only make you cry.
How you're longing for the ocean but I can only give you sky.

Friday, May 22, 2015

the porch problem

when you think you are performing for someone but there is in fact no audience 

when you try to create something for yourself but can't stop thinking about the impossible potential audience 

why I never write anymore 

why I sing only during dishes

when will I learn 

or figure how to forgive myself


amy and I talked about the selfishness of artists and wondered if that's what it takes to make anything worthwhile. do I have to stop everything else? not that it is anything but I haven't written in weeks, months, years. what do I want anymore? can I blame the place or the job or just me?

a borrowed beer on the porch, a beer too often. a smuggled smoke, ashes again. 

these small sacrifices grow a larger harvest. they don't answer the questions or the problem. 

where can I go? my home under the hill? I've almost stopped believing. 

there's truly no place for me. 

the truth is I'm stuck again and I hate myself for it. the worser truth is that I don't see any way out. even though there are people out there waiting for me, wanting me to bring the fire, I can't believe that it's the right fire. I only have one flame and it's gone out. nothing to be done now. 

have another smoke, another drink, don't think.
the porch is the only place you'll ever be, there's nothing here but what you see. 

Friday, May 08, 2015