backfire

A man and child are throwing paper airplanes back and forth. Above me, a veteran is dragging heavy footsteps and wheels across the floor, casting bright reflections by my bare feet. I am winning this game! the child exclaims, throwing a sharp edge deep into the ground, convinced that no one will beat him. His dark and underdeveloped feet fly over the dark carpet that so inefficiently covers the wooden interior of this old building, once a factory. The paper plane hits my foot as the child feigns confusion, Why you throw it over THERE, grandpa? His, You told me to throw it over there! is filled with laughter as his heart explodes with love for this boy that resembles everything he was six decades ago. I pick it up and throw it back as it sails smoothly through the thick air, veering to the left and landing at the child’s right foot. I am rewarded with a tiny mouthful of teeth and the most genuine sprinkle of laughter that I’ve heard in years.

The man from the other day is back, his jacket is missing. Today he is dressed nicely, a grey button down desperately in need of the heat of an iron, navy blue pants. He looks shocked, I am not surprised at all. His white socks are awkwardly peering out from behind his dark muddy shoes as he sits at the table and stares at me without once breaking contact. Damn, he’s good. I am unsure of my comfort level but I no longer feel the urge to run away, perhaps I am simply void of energy, of any sort of desire to disappear. I admire the red hair he so proudly shows today, observing how it contrasts fluidly with the dull grey that covers his large body. I am reading about jazz while he is folding his right hand under his left, his left hand under his right. I am twisting my feet in an anxious jumble while he is staring at my face intently, searching for any sort of emotion, expecting to see fear and disgust but seeing pleasant understanding instead. I am trying to process words but I feel the awkwardly loud presence of another’s eyes, conspicuously soaking in all that exists. I have had enough and raise mine to meet his, smile brightly and almost immediately send a sea of crimson rushing across his face, an electrical charge to his legs that lifts him out of his seat in a frenzied stupor. He stumbles to the store that sells comic books, or perhaps the record store covered in dust, and his journey is completed by several glances over his shoulder, meeting of the eyes, a transfer of energy, of knowledge and odd familiarity. Silently I thank him.

red fingernails & hair

I carefully walked down the broken sidewalk to preserve the soft curls I so hastily created, to give him a chance to turn the wheel before I crossed the busy street. I smelled the blunt air, heard birds being welcomed into the world, and watched as they pushed open their heavy outlets in the hopes of a single gust of warm air. Instead they felt the harshness of a youthful spring struggling to hold on. Immersed in this quietly simple world, I failed to notice the man towering over me in a 49ers jacket stained with the filth of his life, its fibers desperately reaching for fresh odors to swallow. He stared silently at me, a patch of fiery warmth hanging down to the bulge in his throat, his hands nervously moving his hat over his unwashed head, soaking up the life he needed to let go of, like a mother of the lost youth she sees in her child riding his bike down a road that is unmatched in length. His eyes ran side to side, up and down, and not once did he remove them from his target, a young woman seemingly unable to go disregarded.

I pretend not to notice as a cold chill penetrates my flesh. It is all too familiar but this time I fail to quicken my step as my eyes furiously scan the world for curious bystanders. He is behind me now, allowing me to smell the unused washer, the cold misery, the stifled warmth. I concentrate on the man trimming the greens, the painter on the roof struggling to cover the harshness of the wind that we try to escape with the strongest winces we can muster. I feel a hand brush across the back of my shoulder as I keep walking, I don’t look until I feel a second chill rushing down my spine, covering my lower back, radiating down my legs.

As the tips of a stranger’s fingers graze thin fabric, she flinches and races to her destination. She turns slowly to face the man who provides such familiar discomfort, such violating intimacy, looks him directly in the eye with pleasant disgust as he runs his broken finger through a single ringlet that the wind has separated from its comfortable cluster. His eyes are empty, as empty as his unsympathetic mouth, his hands impolite and scarred, his face hidden by the same fiery warmth that dips downward and blossoms into an uncivil creature of rage and anxiety, desire and confusion. She sees the self-loathing in his stature, the conformity he distastefully rejects, the longing he resentfully displaces, the beauty he inappropriately recognizes. She understands, but not before the painter notices and forces a yell from up above. Everything okay? Feet are quickly moving over the broken pavement, he is running, he is slowly walking away. She knows, she turns, he knows, nobody really knows. She understands, she always understands.

ratatat

He says, Each time I see you you’re more beautiful. I can do nothing but stare blankly at your lips when such statements tastelessly pour from them, force a tired smile and thank you for your complete disregard. I no longer roll white beauty in your presence, I am no longer mesmerized by the filth that surrounds your life. Your mouth has lost its ability to mold itself into deceivingly genuine shapes, your loss is my gain. I am strangely triumphant in claiming a false victory when the words I deliver to your stained flesh do everything but penetrate, your eyes are far too displaced, your tongue can no longer identify the sweetness of death swallowed whole. You can touch my hair all you want and sew our mouths together with lace and beads but I’m not staying for you, I won’t budge for even the sharpest needle. Keep blowing rings into the dense blackness, observe how everything is mixing and swirling like fluids in a capped cylinder. I’ll just close my eyes and feel the blow tickling the hair that bends upward from widened pupils, hair that brushes my bare shoulder every now and then like a leaf on a helpless journey across cement walls, broken fences and burned rooftops.

Now I’m back, 70 miles east, overcome with the sweetest lull that seems to put my body at peace and drain energy from my every pore in just the right proportions. This is a period of less noise, I’m standing above my body and being carried by the wind in smooth circles around a room that knows nothing yet of my life. There are words to be read, faces to be consoled, secrets to be exchanged, and you’re looking in all the wrong places for a girl to love you back. You’ll wash her soft skin with the blood from your torn veins in the hopes of waking her from the deepest slumber, place savage mixes upon her ears, salts upon her face, petals between her red lips that shamelessly beckon to yours. She is rolling the tips of her blue fingers across the slow waves you have planted in her mind, arching her back as she lays in a broth of your stagnant disregard, breathing deeply the air muffled by belated apologies and stale regret. I’ll gently place the bouquet of blossoming youth upon the stone that marks the complete illusion your life was, the fantasy that I swallowed so desperately, the cloud of languor your existence rained upon my broken skull, and I’ll finally walk away.

seminal

This is the life cycle, the passing on of all you possess, the inescapable ending of swimming strands. Pace is the trick and it’s a matter of security. I rode the bus seventy miles to come back to this place that holds so much within its walls – It smells like my tricks, it looks like my loneliness, it feels like stale hope. Once I lay on the bed and loved, once I let warm truth stream down my face, once I pressed a blade into soft flesh and stifled loud gasps, once I slipped pink pleasure upon my tongue. Once I gave everything I had to a boy with messy hair, tired eyes, a boy with bruised organs and coaxing lips, even a girl filled with desire and nowhere to put the love trapped in her heart. Once I ran my hands through your soft hair and took away your solitude, I took it all and never looked back. You gave me little circles of happiness and I eagerly swallowed them in the hope of glowing like I used to before your name ever crossed between my sore lips. Once you touched my face tenderly, once you touched it with anger and left me with nowhere to put displaced forgiveness. These walls have never slipped up, they’ve never exposed the flames that engulf the old trees behind your house or the footprints that keep seedlings from breaking through the crude surface. Once I was kissed in the wet grass as it reached up begging to tickle my bare legs. He sleeps with one hand around my throat, the other between my legs, softly moving his fingers up and down the scars covering otherwise pure flesh. The sun shines through the window and makes my hair sparkle like your eyes after the first night, it’s always the few seconds before and the long minutes after. I always turn away and look out the foggy opening at the trees wishing for someone to hear them, towering above the source of their inevitable destruction. I imagine floating above them, watching the people of this city love themselves, hate each other, hate themselves, it’s all part of that same cycle. Floating and watching the leaves change colour and fall to the ground, watching the frantic blur of skin and fur as each fights for survival. And this is the life cycle.

this much

it’s the mattresses on the floor, the chairs, the beds, the couches, the nights it was so freezing my teeth chattered through the night and it didn’t even matter. it’s heart over logic, it’s a natural migration. it’s how i dance across the grass and you hide underground, it’s that you think life is a painful journey and i think it’s a beautiful painting. it’s your empty promises and my hopeful words, it’s me jumping on the bed and you sleeping for 15 hours straight. it’s my hair getting longer and your fingers making me feel the change, it’s yours always looking the same. it’s me wanting to fly a kite and you wanting to take a nap, it’s me wanting to sit in the window and it’s you thinking the world’s not dark enough. it’s me liking bright lips and dark eyes, it’s you silently watching all the dark run down smooth flesh. it’s me loving to breathe and you loving to suffocate. it’s where you belong and i don’t.

he was harmless only when he was sleeping and in the end she left him in a dream

My stomach is empty during the day, my legs hurt at night and I am enjoying solitude for the very first time. I’m sitting at my window, it’s dark and everybody can see but I just want to look and I’m not hiding. Grey is blending at every angle and your hands are waving, it’s windy and you need comfort because you cannot control your fingers. All I can think about is the way hair sits on your head and how I can’t look away as your mouth goes through the motions. I try to listen to the words as they pour out but I can’t hear anything you’re saying, I just look at the flesh and the beauty I can’t help but notice above everything else. I sip my wine a little too quickly and you smile nervously, you know, the one where your mouth crinkles and shifts upward on the left making you look deceivingly asymmetrical, I know exactly what you’re thinking. You’re not forcing it, your eyes shine briefly as you whisper in my ear and it’s all the proof that I’ll ever need. I won’t fall for it under the dim lights, I’ve got a long way to go and your words laced with desire won’t stop me. Haven’t you seen my new act? It’s real easy for me to disappear, what once was a hobby has become my driving force. I will never explain myself, I can never explain myself, I can never sleep, only lose a little shame and lie through my teeth, pull the sheets tighter over my head every morning but the nights are just getting longer and I don’t want your black tulips anymore. I’ll leave the music on if it helps you fall asleep but our veins are no longer intertwined and I don’t understand why nothing feels different to you.

rest cheek to cheek, fingers underneath, soft impressions of your teeth

Anybody excited for the new Coldplay album? They’re no longer a favourite band of mine [for numerous reasons, but I can appreciate them to a certain degree], but I was listening to one of the singles off the album [due out 16 June 2008 in the UK], Violet Hill, which I’m sure you’ve seen the video for:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=IakDItZ7f7Q

I was quite a bit surprised. Well, not surprised, but I wasn’t expecting to like it this much, so I’m eager to see what this album is like. Chris Martin, at times you interest me deeply. Strange. Here’s the other single they’ve released: [Viva la Vida] http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZSetQkg0j8c

Today was my first day of work at the Children’s Institute. The people are great there, and it’s in the Village Gate which is really nice & quiet and there are many interesting people around. The only thing I’m not too excited about is the roughly one hour [total] of travel time spent on the bus. This might be because my first experience, at 10:30AM, was a 50 year old drunk man reeking of vodka sitting down with his face one inch from mine and his arm around me, playing with my hair for 25 minutes straight and breathing in my face. Also, is it normal to be terrified of 12 year old girls? I feel like I should be used to this by now, after a year of Jumpstart, but these experiences never cease to amaze me. One thing I do like about the bus ride is that it’s so long and it goes to numerous different areas of Rochester, and I get to see the parts that I wouldn’t normally get out and experience. Anyway. I am surprised by how much I like living by myself…of course it’s only been two days so I’m sure I’ll feel differently after a month of this, but it is just very relaxing and there’s no pressure associated with it. I’m sure it will get lonely eventually but I have a lot I want to accomplish this summer. I’ve seen a couple people and I’ll see more; I just like doing my own thing and not having to deal with the issues that come along with living with others, as I’m sure some of you can understand.

Sometime this week I want to start reading Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, which I’m extremely excited about. I’m a little annoyed that I don’t have the time or money to take a class this summer because I got an email from one of the SDT grad students who is teaching ‘Psychological Applications of Existential Theory’ as an experimental course this summer & limiting it to about 6 students. She does her research in Terror Management Theory, which is really interesting and something that I haven’t read much about but definitely want to. You can read more about it here: http://www.tmt.missouri.edu/

It’s a hit

I want to live somewhere that looks like this:

How beautiful is that? I love that I’ve looked at that picture at least 50 times and each time I’ve noticed something new. More:

Outside:

So a few hours ago I moved into my room for the summer in the townehouse. I’m sitting at my giant window [which makes me really happy, even though only the bottom part opens and there's no screen and someone can just climb onto the roof and into my window if I'm not careful, but I mean, it takes up almost the entire wall and I love that much window space!] staring at the cemetery which is just gorgeous right now; it’s making me feel quite content. From here, the world looks so pretty. My room is directly above the security headquarters which is interesting.

virtue and wine.

Last night was fun and very strange. In other news…Have you listened to Sondre Lerche? I’m so obsessed with him lately. Great stuff. I want the sun to come out, and today is my last day in this tiny closet of a room.