Literary Tropes and Corpses

I just realized that I have become a trope in literature.  What a bummer.  To be a recurring theme is not exactly cause for celebration.  But … hmmm.  If I can see my life from the outside like that, and observe who I am and I have been and who I’m becoming, is that potentially good?  I’m not sure.  Because part of me wants to be oblivious (it hurts less) and part of me wants to be hyper-aware of my life as I’m living (it hurts more). 

Here are my archetypes:  the broken idealist (Holden Caulfield), the hopeless romantic who thinks you can recreate the past (Jay Gatsby), the Madonna/whore (Hester Prynne), the time-tripping drone (Billy Pilgrim), the master manipulator (Niccolo Machiavelli) … probably I’m just Holden most of the time, even though I’m old.  When I think about it, Kurt Vonnegut was just an older Holden, so maybe that’s my trope. 

The older I get the less tolerable I am to bullshit.  I recognize the fact that I bitch and complain sometimes, but I am ALWAYS aware of how annoying my own angst is.  I don’t like it myself, which is why I puke it on out this blog rather than directing it at other people all the time. 

I don’t want to be a hopeless romantic.  I thought I believed in love, but I was wrong.  Love doesn’t solve anything.  At best, love can make life more tolerable; but at worst, love just disappears and leaves an exogenous shell.  Being a shell sucks. 

More archetypes:  I am on a QUEST (to become the person I want to be and to live the life I want to live).  I am on a JOURNEY through levels of personal hell to shed all the harmful, external forces invading my life.  I wear BLACK all the time, perhaps because I’m mourning the passing of my youth.  I am a BRUNETTE temptress, not the goddess I deserve to be. 

I’m ready to just be a person who doesn’t fit into any categories.  I am sick of seeing myself through the eyes of other people, and the scope of society’s terms.  I’m ready to free myself.

An Experiment

I get it now.  I was an experiment.  I was a thing you were interested in, for a minute, because I was different.  You wanted to find out what would happen.  Kind of like when a little kid sees matches for the first time and tries to light them.  It takes a couple of strikes, and then fire happens.  And then the fire starts to burn the kid’s finger, and he throws down the match and moves on to something else. 

Realistically, the kid could become a pyro, but (more likely) the kid was just curious.

I don’t like being thrown away like that.  I know everyone has their own, independent personality to cope with (experiences and all), but people should think about what fires they light and what will happen if the flame gets out of their control. 

Are you going to step on it?  Thrown water on it?  Watch it burn down to the ashes? 

And if the fires burns too bright for you, call 911.  Or something.  Don’t just stand there and watch other people stand in a burning room that YOU set on fire, accidentally (?). 

Experiments are only conducive to learning when the people involved all know what the fucking experiment is.  I mean, if I just show up to a concert to hear music, but the real deal is that some weird auditory experiment is being conducted on me … is that fair?  Maybe I should just accept the fact that I heard some music, and not worry about the trick being played on me. 

Or maybe the experimenter shouldn’t let the rat in the cage kill itself trying to get out, just because he or she is trying to find something out.  To experiment with life.  Isn’t a scientist usually observing things to see how they turn out?  And isn’t a scientist quite used to failure, simply because everything is an experiment?  I mean, sometimes things turn out as planned, but usually there are extenuating circumstances and unpredictable forces interfering, so they just watch and then plan the future events accordingly.

He was watching me, now that I think about it, all the time.  Observing from a distance.  Declaring things which were happening, but the declarations were often without emotion.  Sitting in a chair with a cocktail while I took a bath or listened to music or kissed him.  Moments were documented, introspection occurred.  Positive outcomes created future experiments, until the experiment was out of his control.  No scientist wants their plan to exceed their control.  They lose power.

Did I make you cry the first time I gave you a deep tissue massage and I said “you deserve to be taken care of once in a while”?  Yes.  You literally wept, and then you said, “I wasn’t expecting that” when you came back into the room a few minutes later.  That’s it.  No subsequent feeling words.  Stoic manliness or professorial distance or something else just as vapid.  I should have noticed that you were systematically addressing the glitches in your machine.

Spontaneous, unpredictable reactions are the fabric of life, friend.  You can’t foresee everything, but you can certainly adapt to circumstances.  I believe that’s called evolution.  Evolve, already.

Today

Do you ever not look at yourself for a while?  Do you ever look at the reflection in the mirror only long enough to brush your hair and your teeth and make sure no articles of clothing are in disarray? 

Do you then, sometimes, look in the mirror and see a shittier version of yourself?  Do you wonder how you let yourself go?  Do you wonder if you care enough to improve your mirror image? 

Wouldn’t it be great to have someone else who reflects you? Who can tell you when you’re disintegrating?  Who cares enough to speak the truth about what lies before them?

Is it a vapid dream to think that other people care enough about us to speak their minds honestly and truthfully and kindly?  

Questions

Is it possible to get so good at being single and alone that you accidentally miss some potentially great things? 

Is it possible to get so wrapped up in wanting to be with somebody you love that you forget who you are?

Is it possible to listen to your brain and your body at the same time?  It is possible that those two things might not have the same agenda?

Is it possible to just drop all the extraneous nonsense in a relationship and create a continuous dialogue between two people?

Is it possible to sacrifice a piece of yourself and maintain who you are?  Is it possible to tell when you’ve sacrificed a bit too much of yourself?

Probably not.  Good talk.  

What?

Love happens at like 450 degrees. It fucking burns, and it feels so good. You sit there wanting to stick your hand in the fire just to see how it feels, but you already know it’s going to burn your hand.  It’s going to hurt.  Should I stick my hand in there? 

Yeah, probably. 

What the hell kind of logic is that?  Because, ironically, you want to stick your hand in there.  You want to feel the hot proximity of love.  You want to be lit on fire with mind-numbing orgasms and stolen, soul-stroking kisses, and guilty, coy looks in front of your other people.  The desire is far more consuming than the love (if you’re doing it right), and then comes the honeymoon: watching-movies, laying-on-the-couch, making-love-all-day, making-meals-together, falling-asleep-together, waking-up-together, showering-together.  You like it.  Everything feels good.  Little things are important, and that flower by the bed when you woke up was totally unlike that person, but they did it because they like you.  Smile; drink it in.

 “Like” is the important word in that last paragraph.  Having sex is great, but making love with someone you really like is different.  This person in front of you is not just a momentary, sweaty distraction; you’re all of a sudden hanging out with your good friend, but you’re getting laid too.  (That sounds like such a douche-bag thing, sorry…)  It doesn’t suck to be happy.

But, you know where this story goes. 

Reality sets in, and people are often not on the same page.  Things just start not working out, because of time or distance or work or school or whatever.  Then you have a choice.  Try to chase the dragon, by compromising parts of yourself in order to make someone else happy?  Or let go. 

Letting go is hard.  Letting go can feel really redemptive and beautiful, or it can feel like ripping your own heart out of your chest.  Do you know when to let go?   Do you know when to rip your own heart out, and place it at the feet of the person you love and hope they don’t trample on it?  Do you want to fight for something?  Is there anything to even fight for?  How did something so beautiful turn into a dilemma?  Me?  You? 

Who cares?  You were right all along.  You weren’t listening to yourself.  You only remember a version of what’s happening.  There are two people in a relationship, after all.  (God, I hate that relationship word.  It’s like a fucking linguistic time bomb.)  But you need to listen not just to yourself.  You need to listen to the other person, right?  Respect.  Change your frequency to listen to other channels.  Find a different path.  Live a different life.  Embrace change and allow someone else to break through your carefully constructed brick walls.  Maybe you’ll be better or happier or healthier.

Or …

Listen to that shitty, gnawing voice in your head that doesn’t trust other people.  Or just give up, because trying is too hard.  Or be mean to that person so they’ll go away and you don’t have to face your own shitty personality flaws.  Or string the other person along so you don’t have to make an actual decision. 

How are you going to find someone else?  Meet them at a bar?  Meet them on e-harmony?  Find someone from your past who is more accessible, so you don’t have to try as hard?

 Your problem is that (eventually) they will want a part of you, and you’re not willing to give anything away.  You don’t even realize it, but you’re pushing people away, because you think you’re too fucked up to be loved properly.  Too many missteps; too many losses.  You try to find love, and then you tank it (accidentally, on purpose), because you don’t want any more messy situations in your life, right?  It feels better to not care, right?  You’re a little proud of yourself because you were able to shut off the tap before that other person wanted too much from you, right?  Good for you.  Good for all of humanity. Because the nearly constant euphoric, orgasmic, fluid parts of your “relationship” are gone; it’s all over, right?  Move on, right?

You know you.  I know you differently.  I’m just meeting me.  

I’m Gonna Forget

I don’t know if things are good or bad.  Probably bad, I don’t know.  I don’t know where things end up, so maybe I am the weakest point, maybe I was the weakest point all along.  I need to change the design a little bit.  The old me didn’t have seals in it.  And that wad of grease I just pulled out of that place probably didn’t being there.  Moments are an inferior message.  Context is key. 

It really doesn’t matter. 

I’m just trying to hear everything. When I hear good things, I put them in context.  What’s the next thing?  Am I missing a bolt?  Was I constructed improperly?  Does it matter?  Interesting. 

Silence. 

I wonder how far I should go with it?  Should I take it all apart?  At what point do you stop fucking with it and move onto something else? 

Silence.

Does what I say have a bad connotation?  Then take it back.  Use it how you need it.  Do what you have to do.  Breathe in the fumes of whatever is around you and either swim or choke.  It’s all up to you.  Maybe everything will spark together and start on fire, or maybe it will just eventually break and you’ll be searching for a short in the electricity. 

There’s nothing wrong with learning experiences, until people step over the line and unnecessarily hurt others.  Human nature is adaptable.  Sometimes.  If you don’t move on, the darkness overcomes.  Fuck the darkness.  Using the cover of darkness is sometimes just an excuse, but it’s beautiful.  No one expects you.  Others can’t see what’s beyond the glare of the streetlights.  But you’re still lurking in the shadows.   What are you doing?

The little shit doesn’t matter.  Sometimes there’s a pile of socks, and then it becomes a metaphor for your messy life.  Sometimes socks are just socks.  Move on to a different corner of the room.

These things that I’m writing have no coherence whatsoever.  You’re welcome.  Sometimes life is just bullshit and nobody cares.  Sometimes life smiles on you for a minute – how can you tell the difference between a smile and a frown?  The people who care are the ones who need to stay in our lives.  The ones who accept us for who we are – fucking broken shards and all.

We have to wander off sometimes, just to find out where we are.  And sometimes, when we come back to home base, we forget where we lived in the first place.  Lost.  Out of place.  A player on a stage where the light shines on us, but we forgot all the lines.  Frozen in place, without an exit sign or a pulse.  Feel your carotid – see if you’re still alive.  Feel the pulse.  Count the beats.  Ask yourself if you’re still alive. 

If you are, live out loud.  Sing.  Play.  Be.  Write.  Think.  Don’t think.  Just DO.  

Stop (?)

I can’t stop.

The obsessive part of my brain is constantly running and wondering and wandering and wanting.  I want everything I can’t have, and I resist everything that’s around me. 

To be clear:  I don’t HAVE any people.  We don’t own one another.  I INTERACT with other people, some more intimately than others, but I don’t OWN any of them, including my children.  Everyone is his or her own person.  So why do we try to possess other people?  Why do we want to label and classify the people in our lives?  Why can’t we get all Kurt Vonnegut on this bitch of a life, and accept that there are people who orbit our worlds more closely than others? 

Take care of me, and I’ll take care of you.  Respect me, and I’ll respect you.  Love me, and I’ll love you.  Have my back, and I’ll have yours.  Listen to me, and I’ll listen to you all day and all night, and even when you’re not talking.  I can hear you.  You’re not talking to me, but I can hear you.  When the wind blows really hard to the south, I go outside and say words out loud so they can find you.  I may be crazy, but I’m not THAT kind of crazy.  I know what I know, and you are just lost in yourself right now.  Fucking dig your way out.  Listen to the wind.  I will help you find the good part of you again.  And you will do the same for me.

Maybe. 

I think I might overestimate humanity. 

Ravaged Words

02 January 2017

Some things are too embarrassing

I could never tell you

I could never tell anyone

How much I think about you

How it scares me

Every morning as insomnia’s grip loosens

I stare at your picture

I think of your painful shyness

Your ravaged self-opinion

Your incredible beauty

How I am drawn to you

I will never be able to pound words into lines

To match the velocity of your presence

I will never let you know how much you hurt me

No, I will never tell you

The last few months have sent me into myself

It’s not easy to forget you

Time is healing me

I keep my feelings to myself, it helps

I don’t understand you or your kind

I end up getting myself messed up

I can’t take any more beatings like this

If I thought it would help

I would stay with you for as long as it took

I would show you something different

That I was telling you the truth the whole time

As it is right now

I have taken all I can

Your shallowness has thrown me into a deep hole

It would be better for me to hate you I know

But I can’t

I try but I keep thinking of you sitting alone

Seeing yourself as pieces of broken glass on the floor

Your introverted rage is hard to be around

Good luck

-H.R.

To Henry Rollins

Question:  How did you get in my brain?  How can you write such hauntingly beautiful, fucked-up shit?  How can you write depressing, soul-crushing rants, and then drop a love poem in the next breath?

You said that writing was the stitching that kept you from exploding – we have that in common.  But sometimes the words just get in the fucking way.  No matter what I say or write is misconstrued or misinterpreted or ignored or just left to float for a second in the open air, and then it just dissipates.  I delusionally think that my words and thoughts have import, but … maybe they’re just a convenient medium for my existential angst.

You also wrote that silence is the most powerful sound you’ve ever heard, and I want to punch you in the face for being so right.  I could tell you about my boyfriend who just broke up with me and then followed with abject and total silence, but it’s fucking embarrassing.  I’m 45.  I’m supposed to be old enough to know better.  I’ve already been married and had kids, and it didn’t work.  I was celibate for a decade, and then I tried again, only to be left feeling like a stupid 15-year-old girl who didn’t know any better.  I agree with your line, “I can’t take any more beatings like this.”  Allowing people in is self-imposed cruelty.  People are harmful.  They lift me up, and then strappado me when I let them in.

Ready for some irony?  I teach high school.  I like it most of the time.  I give great advice to teenagers, advice I can’t even take for myself.  I reach out and listen to them and change their lives, but I can’t listen to myself or change my own life. 

Example:  why the hell am I writing a letter to you?  The simple answer is that I’m reading your book (The Portable Henry Rollins), and you’re the first person who has understood me in like a thousand years, but you don’t even know me.  You have a gift for just breaking through all the bullshit and laying it on the table, regardless of how gruesome or honest or sincere it might be.  I try to do that on my blog, but I’m pretty sure no one reads it, because people are afraid of honesty.  Honesty often comes out sounding like clinical depression or unabashed rage.  I don’t write when I’m happy.  I write when I need therapy, which I can’t afford on a school teacher’s salary. 

But I digress.  My intent was to thank you for writing a book that came to me at a point in my life when I desperately need it.  (I’ve never read any of your books before now – just listened to Black Flag and got angry-drunk back in the 80s.)  I just wanted you to know that all your rambling is a beautiful mess, and I wish I could pull myself out of this self-medicating coma of liquor and prescription drugs long enough to care to publish my writing.  I just can’t.  Yet.  I’ll either be dead soon from organ failure, or I’ll come up to breathe again. 

Either way, your book has helped me find some much needed air, so thank you.