Some things are just unavoidable.
Pain, for instance, is unavoidable. Try as you might, guard yourself with the highest walls and most elaborate defense systems, choose your comrades as carefully as practicality dictates, and all to no avail. In the midst and despite all your best efforts, there is still pain. Pain doesn't signify much- it humiliates and worries, and it produces guilt and fear, but from what? Just itself. We fear and loathe pain. The cause of it doesn't matter so much: everything causes pain. 

I encounter proof that no matter how much anyone loves me does not mean that they are above betrayal. Everything betrays. You do, I do, it's a fact of our muddled and confused human relationships that betrayal is just another function of love.

And we lie. Nothing, not one thing, nothing ever stops the lies.

#1 "Oh Great Unifying Principle, what is it you would have me be?"

#2 "..."

#1 "speak to me, incandescent truth, how am I to fit into this great and glorious Universe"

#2 "..."

#1 "I see! I interpret! I Pray! I Know!"


Most of my closest friends are Christians....I am not. It's a source of great interest for me. I'm not an atheist, I'm not an agnostic, I'm not a materialist, I believe in THE GREAT UNIFYING PRINCIPLE OF TRUTH which, of course, most have named "God". I think I have expressed on previous occasions how ridiculous I find the idea of a consciousness as a creator. We are not nearly wise enough to approach actual truth, and frustrated by the limitations of our reason, we've anthropomorphized truth and named it "God.
How does no one else see this, I wonder, I wonder aloud.

The bible is God's Word, they say. The infallible word of God.

And, by my accounts, they are the words of truth, and so is everything else. Everything is the word of the unifying principle, nothing can fall outside of the unifying principle and knowledge then (knowledge, that great distractor, that ultimate liar, the enemy of truth) is extracted and interpreted to be then imbedded in our cultural systems, our great works, our not-so-great works, our speeches and gestures all together to illuminate and obscure TRUTH

All about love. All about war.

I can't explain this state that I'm in, the state where we are, the state of the union.
Bring me the hopeless and lead them astray, produce beauty, discover humility.
Question yourself, who am I? Is I anywhere close to me?
What have I done?
What haven't I finished?
Where can I be of service?
There aren't enough words in all the languages to describe, to dictate or to lead.

When it comes right down to it, our Corporeal realities are just as illuminating as our words
 

I want to run.
I want to drive, or maybe hop on a train.
I want to keep pens, or cigarettes, or joints, or flowers in my hands at all times
I want to dress in scandalous cotton dresses, and men's clothing made of leather, and beaded vests
I want to drink whiskey while wearing a cowboy hat, and never let a soul see my eyes.
I want to play piano in a saloon until the crowd sings along, sloshing all the while
I want to spend a week alone, visiting mountain ranges, caves and rivers
I want to float on the ocean and feel absolutely impossibly miniscule
I want to stare at the sky for hours and find shapes in clouds
I want to play hard rock and paint my eyes black
I want to die my hair hot-pink, and then grow it out to my waist
I want to fill a notebook full of uncensored missives to myself
I want to drink black coffee at 6 am, when I've been up all night driving towards an inevitable dawn
I want to touch the soul of a stranger, a kindred spirit who I can promise never to forget, and mean it, and then walk away
I want to buy lemonade from children, and tip them with twenties
I want to turn over a wal-mart and split it with an impossibly organized anonymous mob of brief comrades
I want to ride a horse on a days journey to a neighboring town, lunching on hunks of cheese, jerky and bread
I want to dance scandalously with a stranger and leave her breathless

don't you ever just want...OUT?

my morning, my wanderlust will be replaced by my appreciation for regular showers and a bed I am confident is free from fleas or semen.

But goddamn.

I can't think of anything profound anymore. I have probably never had a truly *profound* thought, but they were weighty enough to satisfy me. I'm not shocked by any new thoughts. This could just be growing up, a gradual realization that when it comes to wisdom I truly am, always was, absolutely devoid. So why am I writing?
Easy.
Narcissism.

This week has been one long march towards an inevitable nothing...but, that's what my life feels like these days. I wasn't ambitious early enough- or rather, was, just the wrong ambitions. I never even made those fun mistakes most of us make while we make grasps towards adulthood. Booze, drugs, sex- why didn't those appeal to me?

Well here I am. Safe. Safe and wedged, and pulled on a one way track leading straight into nothing.

Feeling particularly uninspired today.

Or I'm inspired, but by all the wrong things.
There's only so much you can control, even at the level of your own life. You can choose your partner carefully. You can choose your words carefully. At the end of the day, that's not going to stop the stumbling and raging inevitable in a realm controlled by emotion, not reason.
I'm a Kantian, at least, I sort of think I might be. But for all the stock I put in reason and it's ability to decode truth (or things much like truth) I am aware that it's the feelings and the irrational response that dominates real action.

My taste isn't as hardcore as I like to think it is. Sitting with friends over smoke and pizza, we watched the dismemberment of cartoons and I hid my eyes.
You'd think I'd have overcome squeamishness, and I haven't. I've been the subject of, and witness to the sorts of destructive real violence which results in alienation. Alienation, in certain degrees, that is to say, complete alienation, can be worse than death and worse than physical pain. Mostly, violence, particularly among familial relations (or the equivalent) is meant to alienate rather than to assert. My type of violence. It's that kind which I'm capable of. Not the other kind.
The other kind is the sort belonging to soldiers, revolutionaries, bar-brawls. I don't ethically defend either kind, but at least the latter can masquerade as righteous or honorable. I'm the dirty kind of violent. The pain I inflict is meant to stick.
We don't deal in well-reasoned attacks as a matter of strategy, but the blind lashing out, claws, nails, disgust and insults vile enough to have their own category. No longer a mere insult. Not words to be compared to sticks and stones, but half-truths to deceive into total humiliation.

Anyway. Cartoon was a bad idea. I slept unbelievably poorly. Cartoons it seems, can still give me nightmares.
Pieces of me are stuck at 7 years old.

Today I'm alone and it's actually beautiful.
As soon as the winter started to give I went and made those gauzy-long iridescent white curtains, the sort meant to depict cliched dream sequences in bad music videos filmed in the 80's. Cheesy enough for me to love them.
And the windows are open and the sun hits the white gauze in strips to diffuse with fresh air through my little dwelling. I'm wearing white, no shoes, hair (disgustingly sentimental) up in schemes of little braids.
I wanted to feel fresh and clean, open like early summer.

I'm a romantic fool, even in my most nihilistic moods.
(Someone say "aren't we all?" and validate my ass)


So what?
So, I want a mission I an stick to. A theory I can practically apply to those things on which I can focus and those things I can, and should, ignore. I let far too many meaningless things distract me, and my attention revolts.
Why livejournal?
Because it feeds my gross self-involvement. Self-love. Didn't I, sometime earlier, call this emotional masturbation?

Well, it was good for me.

I'm bridled by choice, or fear, and that used to disturb me.

And then, I figure, why not? It's fine to be afraid. It's a symptom of deeper impulse to self-preservation. And the low self-esteem thing? Well, that's just proof that I'm not suffering from the god-complex so epidemic in a society defined by a false sense of superiority.

So if I have to be hindered by something, and we're all hindered by something, why not fear? I like it. It leaves the possibility of recovery possible after courage is teased alive by the slow and cautious pursuit of well-reasoned answers to the problem of my own inaction.

Maybe it is a sick sort of cowardice, and maybe it's not. We can learn something from anything, can't we? It doesn't have to be an anguished condition.  There are reasons.

But what if? What would I create and what would I kill? What sort of havoc could I wreak in a pretty inhibited life?
and I am. Inhibited. I know.

I toe over the line to the immediate welling of shame, and then sit, resentfully pouting, about how much I want to cross it again.

I don't know who I'm struggling against anymore, so it must be myself.

that is so disturbing.

Why, oh why did it take me so long to fall in love with this instrument?
Was it pride?
I think it was pride. I think it was because I wanted to be different. I wanted to play the cello. I just had to be different.

But this, as awkward, as gigantic and cumbersome, even compared to the cello, as terribly intrusive as the piano is...it's perfect.
I tried the goddamn guitar. I don't know how many times.You can't sing unaccompanied all the time. It's boring. A nice, golden, acoustic guitar. That's my style, right? Those machines kill FASCISTS, for God's sake...
but no. No matter how many times, my poor, tender little finger tips can NOT be forced to do battle with those terrible, sharp little metal strings. It's not worth it.
But the piano is better with aesthetics. Even better than the guitar.
No, I can't sit bare-foot, cross-legged, sheet of hair falling across my face...no, no cute little picture for me. But the convenient, ordered structure of every note I can name laid out, waiting for me to make use of it in the grand scheme of some new thing.
Perfectly distinct little contrasting black keys, all my accidentals, safely removed from my scale of "proper notes", like Caroline called them...and it's carnal, and frenzied, my communion with the wonder-box beneath my fingers. They're dancing, my arms working, my tongue out, eyes scrunched up in the effort.

It's not enough.
I want a whole body instrument.
I want to flail a leg, take a breath, wiggle my toes and produce sound. I want every opposable appendage to hit tones and chords and notes. I want a super-piano. I  want to be a one-woman orchestra.
No. fuck that.
A one-woman choir.
I want every part of my body to sing a different part.
Voices are better, more organic, more versatile things than piano. 

They should come up with a way to do this. What's the point of quantum mechanics, or physics, or organic chemistry, or a goddammed wifi connections if they cannot allow me to achieve this simple dream.

Technology has done nothing for me.

I just need nicotene

There is no comfort here.

I'm so bone-tired, flesh-weary and re-eyed from this sensation of alienation of my life from my self. I feel vaguely embarrassed walking down the street, as though there was a big brightly colored arrow pointing at all times to the small of my back to alert people. I feel, at best, like a novelty among friends or like an unwelcome, uncomfortable truth which slips it's way into the conversation at an otherwise gentile dinner party.
Like I was deformed, or contagious,
or maybe like those terminal patients, the hopeless cases and know you HAVE to make eye-contact.
I'm embarrassed for myself.
I want to apologize for it.
I think the worst part, is that I feel like a stranger in my own life. I think about it sometimes, the way it really is, the way everyone said it would be. How did I get here?
How did a little blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl, whio the world had every reason to love, who could have gotten away with murder if she'd just stuck to her strengths...how did that little swimmer/diver/climber, the little day-dreamer, the little horse-jumper, the little actress, clown, comedian, the doe-eyed romantic who made a hero of Anne of Green Gables...how did that grow up to want to fuck women?


Something must have gone wrong. I don't like to think of it. I don't like to think of something like this, as the thing which ultimately separates me from ever feeling healthy again.
And you know, I can't help it. I rack my goddamn brains. What IS it? Could I cut it off? Could I get it surgically removed? How did it get there? This homosexual cancer, spreading it's creeping tendrils through my dendrites, feasting on the fleshy, protected areas of my brain labeled "sexual response" and "social behavior". Was it in the history? In some dark, crappy, sadistic scene I can hardly remember, was the identity I was entitled to injured, bludgeoned, distorted into a deviancy?
Fuck that.
fuck it.
That is bullshit. I should not have to pay like this. I should not have to find ways to explain my sexuality, and I do not understand, I cannot sit here and do nothing, I cannot feel 100% human knowing all the while that what I see as love or what I see as sex is dehumanized, a perversion, a blight. An ugly thing.
I don't like being an ugly thing. I don't want to choose wrong. I don't want to choose.

This is painful. This ruins it.

"Yeah" you say. Sitting there smug and sure.
That's old news. of course you feel that way.  We all do. We all already went through that, like, a dozen sexual partners ago.

And I look back on my three.

Dammit.
What can I do better? What should I have done? What boat did I miss? Was there an announcement somewhere? Did I go extremely wrong? Is there a rule out there that says there's a way to handle this, or rather, find a way to put it somewhere safe so it doesn't poison the rest?

I remember being married.
You know, it sucked, obviously, lacking, unsatisfying and held together with scotch tape.
But it wasn't such a big fucking deal if we decided to walk out holding hands. It wasn't a problem for anyone if we shared a spoon.
Introductions were never awkward.
"This is my wife"
and earlier
"This is my fiance"
"This is my girlfriend"
insta-status. Instant social integration. Identity merged and revealed. "This is the other half of my world"

And fuck I understand. That might have been a bullshit thing to value, but the social is not a construct, it's a real actor.
And it's value to me, and it's value to them, and all of the goddamn implications make my head spin. I view myself trough their lens. I view them through your lens. I view you through mine.
I will have to get used to this.
and something in my depths screams "NO!"
I don't want to start seeing myself as a second-class citizen.  Over-dramatization. I feel presumptuous comparing this to racial injustices. Then I feel justified. If this is in any way comparable to what it feels like to be a racial minority, then goddamn.
except, well..

Well, they can't hide it. Gay people can.

I WISH I COULDN'T HIDE IT! I wish there was no possible way to hide.
I wish that during sexual maturity, all gay people developed a mark, maybe right across the forehead, so that hiding would be impossible. We'd HAVE to deal with it. I don't want the option of hiding. Hiding makes me feel as though there is something to hide.

of course I was warned. That doesn't make it easier. I didn't want it in the first place.

I'd give anything to feel like a straight girl again.

give me something to sing about. Something to spin about. give me something to celebrate, for the world comes down in bits and pieces like rubble, splashing and piling around my feet until moving requires more effort than it's ever worth.

rest assured, I've left no pocket unturned
no hidden place for secret words
nothing here to shock you with tomorrow.

These days I wait until the sunlight
can say the things I couldn't dream

one stone for darkness
one for cold
one stone for waiting,
for slowly growing old

these days I listen to the rhythms
beneath the ground waiting clandestine

That smile doesn't hit your eyes right
doesn't speak to your light
a pause enough, a glancing blow, another stone you borrow

one stone for aching
and one stone for want
another for silence 
that quiet hearts can haunt

I'm trying to count them like fingers on my hands.

I'm now in front of a piano
last year I was falling in love.
year before, a comedy club and a Shirley temple, of all, things, in my hands.
back three more... a museum. Boots and salt-encrusted wool.
Back two more...out of state, silent in an icy car with a broken radio
one more...I was home. Alone. I did not mind.
15 years ago, sleeping bags crowding my head, tittering girls in braids. Faded memory and current tendency towards metaphor          makes me remember them as birds- black, red and blond. Melody here, Cacophony there.
at three, I was merely delighted to find that the perfect amount of frosting sticks to the back of those twirly candles.
My first, I'm told, was spoiled by a wretched aunt. It doesn't bother me. I don't remember.

A normal line, makes sense. Equally spaced ticks on my own chronology, which is the only reason they are useful- the evenness of the spacing. Otherwise, non indicative developmentally, and poor markers of maturity. All in all, these days are necessarily distorted by our mis-placed acknowledgment of them. It needs no celebration, there was no accomplishment- at least, no tangible accomplishment. 
Endurance markers.
And so, I'm unable to find the joy until they have marked endurance...I know, this is nothing. 50 more of these and it will be a different story.

The self-doubt that comes with the day reminds me that perhaps my defining flaw is impatience. I'm not sure why a thing like patience cannot be evenly distributed across the entire course of our lives, but for some reason my impression is that it arrives like a gift the closer you are to the end. Now is when it would be useful. I'm even impatient about not having patience.
Call me Veruca, send me down the shoot.

Everything moves much too fast to feel safe
and much too slow to feel laudable

I'm seeing music, everywhere.
Is that weird?
I promise, no substance induced hallucinations. I can't promise I'm not hallucinating, because we never have a total guarantee of the reliability of our perception. My consciousness is contained in an impossibly exclusive perception point.

But nevertheless: I'm seeing music everywhere.

She turns off the tap and the water is a glass plane. A drip from the tap hits the surface, a low note, and rebounds to the octave. The ripple a slow dynamic and fade. A series of drips roll from her elbow in a higher voice, counterpointing the rhythm of the leaking faucet. A cascade of hair invokes the strings. Tiny specks of oxygen release as a limb is lowered beneath the surface, a sudden pizzicato. The candles glow and stutter, brassy shine in her eyes. Symphonic grace.

Sensations blur and blend. Touching is tasting, hearing is seeing, we inhale the scents of memory and tiny little fragrant particles of now- olfactory explosions of moments in time. 

I just killed an entry.

it was drivel.

I haven't done that in a while, finished the majority of a piece only to delete the entire thing. Two clicks and it's gone. Deleted forever. No possible way to re-create it exactly. What might have been 45 minutes of work (work, why am I working? I'm not supposed to be working on things that don't yield results- blogging this way yields absolutely no results) only to flush it. Disgusted at my own thought... which 45 minutes ago I was so fond of. Words which were spilling out, bubbling over, willing themselves into existence via my fidgety little fingers are suddenly inferior. Aimless. Garbage.

Words are only worth it when they're honest. How many dishonest words have I written this year? In precisely how many sentences have I sweetly lied to myself about myself? How do I shape my accounts of my thoughts in order to make them more palatable to myself, personally?

I am vigilant about framing for other people. I refuse to write for any specific audience, unless it is clearly addressed as such. (letters, open letters, dedications) 
I've been clear and unapologetic about that.
But as we sit here, I am framing these sentences for the future self that might have to be subjected to them. I once explained that blogging was valuable because it reflects the spontaneous inspiration- momentary, unrevised moments captured the instant that they are felt...but that entry I just wrote (and erased) was for myself, for the way I think I might feel next week, or whenever I become suddenly curious about what I've been blogging exactly.

That might be a mistake.

I think these entries are maps for myself, written in some self-constructed code, for the things my passion is prone to. For the vulnerabilities I detect. 

I composed a song recently. I was at a piano. I had a lot of free time. I got tired of playing sheet music. I let my eyes wander, I was distracted by the keys. Pianos, all musical instruments, are filled with mystery...a sort of intimidating power which I cannot locate in the construction of the object, nor can i replicate with my own biological instrument.
So I'm lost in the mystery of this piano, and I decide that I am going to solve it.
So I play. The simplest little thing. A, A, B, A, A, B, C, A.  (not notes, sections)
No surprises in structure.
Timed, depending on how accurately I'm playing, it is 2 and a half minutes long.

This is not my first composition. Just my most honest.
Sudden impulse of the moment.

A map to things which are too delicate and unspeakable to withstand revision.

I haven't heard music all day.

Classroom to car to cold cinder-block building after cold building. Not a strain of melody. No lyrics. No voices carried in the impossible effort of fabricating confessional lyrics. No dynamics to emphasize the feeling of a moment
The end of an academic period leaves me feeling robbed of verve. Even these sentences are forced- occupying idle time in which there is neither something to complete nor something to enjoy. It is acceptable, sitting here on the top floor of some university coffee-house imagining the possibilities of a break. Imagining breathing. Imagining a respite. Imagining what I might find when I stop to re-assess the damage of three months ignoring side-stepping self-awareness and terming it selfishness.

I think because I have to. The time I have spent in the inner-recesses, the corners of my mind, the "corners of my ego", as I have termed it, allows me to navigate life according to honestly-assessed goals. It kills the surprise, of course, discovering my feelings this way instead of stumbling over them during crisis or victory. I know how I will feel when (x) finally occurs, because I know how I feel about the possibility of (x) at all.

When it all comes crashing down, or when it's all framed and standing solid, I will know the meaning. I will be able to map my effectiveness in the achievement of my goals or in the avoidance of pain.

So now that it's over.
Now that there is less between the hours of waking and sleeping,
I will find the things that I missed while I wasn't paying attention.

The holidays are here, and the holidays force you to find appreciation for the circumstances you've stumbled into.
It was a long road to get here. There's a much longer road ahead. There are archives memories, there are voices echoing in empty rooms, there are moments that replay themselves without warning. There are broken bits and pieces of worth and of waste.

But I'm here.
I'm here and I want to be.

Will be sent after revision process:

There is something I need to say to you.

I do not have any reason to command your attention. You have no obligation to read or consider the contents of this letter beyond the simple fact that here, you have one person, humbly asking another person to be heard, to be considered. I ask nothing in response from you unless you would like to supply it. I am simply requesting that you accept the earnest and fragile contents of my thoughts and take from them whatever good you can.

I think I am a nice person. I try to be, anyhow. I go out of my way for strangers and acquaintances, occasionally to my own personal and professional detriment. I continue to do this, however, because I believe that people need a break. I think that mostly, we just want to work together. We're lonely, we enjoy being loved, and we enjoy feeling as though we are a participating part of a community.  I think this in spite of my comrades, cynics, who tell me the human species is selfish by nature and therefore egotism is the only way to lead a productive life. I fundamentally disagree with this principle.
    Truly, there are many selfish individuals and our experiences with them hurt us deeply. I therefore think that selfishness is not a human condition, but an accident of life. It is a wound, which then manifests itself into defensiveness, fear and unkindness.

The problem is that you and I are so far removed from each other. The distance hinders our understanding. We are isolated by our unique perspectives. We have forgotten to love thy neighbors as thyselves, forgotten to be the change, forgotten to care for those outside our tiny microcosms. I believe, though.
I believe that kindness and openness can heal long-nursed wounds...
...everyone has their beliefs.

I have faith that through open dialog we can re-ignite the impulse to love. We can understand why the other does as it does, and so assess our intentions. We can forgive past hurt, we can accept differences, we can remember that the higher value beyond our conflicts is the love which permeates us all and lays in wait for a safe environment in which to flourish.

Love is a timid creature.

All that must be done is to give love the gentle promise of safety. A shelter of understanding. We forgive, and then we mend the roof, and then we offer the chance to being growth anew.

So, while I do not necessarily understand why it is you believe the way you do about the world, I understand what it is to believe. I understand how important faith can be. For whatever ways I have disagreed with you, even without knowing you, for however I have unfairly judged the differences between you and I, I humbly apologize. I respect and honor the value in your life's work. Thank you.

I wish you could understand the way I am made, and what it means to me. I wish you could understand why it feels contrary to my being to exist in a world where I cannot love the person I have chosen to love, and why the concept of marriage is so important to me. I wish you could understand that I will form a life-long connection to someone, regardless of whether the state allows it or not. We all will. I just wish that my country, the community I count on to love and understand me, would not judge my love differently than they judge another's. This damages my faith, and my faith is as precious to me as yours is to you.

Thank you for taking the time.

Meant with love,
[my name]

It's strange, the way a gray morning can have that weight. A leaden sky becomes concrete. Weight is in the air. The density of the atmosphere exerts itself upon me, and I am suddenly impossible.

Impossible, inconsolable, and proud.
In the way that I might be alight with enthusiasm on a sunlit dawn, in the barely perceptible grayish gradient that serves as a morning, I am a barely perceptible gray-  sourness and ennui.
and, in the way that dusky particles from the air permeate our cells, the ocher eminating from my pores chokes your breath.

Remedy: will learn humility and to delight in crisp pages of text, snappy fonts with titles like "Times New Roman" and "Verenda" and books with slowly disintigrating bindings, and the smell of dust and cold. Close your eyes and you could be any time. Three or Four hundred years ago, and it's Vienna, It's Oxford. Ignore the mechanized sounds of printer and obtrusive zeal of cell phones, ignore these ears and eyes, use your nostrils and your skin. Is that the familiar smell of electronic venting, or is it old leather?

be anywhere. Be all places. Allow perception to alter with memory and fantasy. Things are universal, even in conflicting interpretations.

I like listening to songwriters sing the phrase "oh my god"
Ryan adams puts the emphasis on the word "oh" in his song Oh my God, Whatever, Etc.




Sufjan Stevens places it on the word "God"



Where do you put it?

oh my God. Oh my God. omigod. oh...my god. Oh my, God.
Oh. My. God.

what does that mean?
Are we asking for something?
is it the prayer that just cannot be finished?

    You know what- I think that if I could ask for any supernatural power, it would be to hear the prayers of anyone I wanted. Anyone. Anywhere. I mean- this is the ultimate act of vouyerism, I know. But people are the most honest when they pray- if they do pray. I think that everyone must try it ...at Least once or twice- Even us non-believers. I mean, sometimes things just suck, and there is no explanation or option, and no possible chance of an answer. So, confirmed atheist that you are, you think just for a second well, it would be arrogant to be so certain. What the fuck?
    And so you do. You Pray.
    And then you remember that God is supposed to be omniscient anyhow, so you might as well be really honest. I mean, if God reads your thoughts, like some would have you believe, you might as well just remove all the frame and dump it out- monologue style. We're talking to ourselves, of course, but we're deluding ourselves too, so we imagine this God thing, and, if you were raised like I was, in that sickeningly American-Pentecostal Cult of idiots, Assemblies of God(the one that endorsed and donated to and advises George W. Bush) you are sort of inclined to think of God at this kindly fellow, halfway between Santa Clause and King Trident, (I was a very young kid when that came out) BUT then you feel guilty because you remember how your sunday school teacher told you (and so did Dr.James Dobson) that Santa Clause was evil, and that you are currently worshiping a false idol, because the guy in your head listening to you looks like Santa, and you're not even allowed to ask the mall-santa for presents. (no offense, Assemblies of God people- I really do respect any way anyone chooses to express their faith, or lack thereof, I'm just a teensy bit bitter)
    So anyway, this God/Santa/Trident thing gets into your head. And if you haven't decided to just give up and commit your soul to Satan for blaspheming in the middle of trying to confess your sins, you eventually remember that you're a grown up. And you're past all this...this traditional notion of  patriarchy and white supremacy- you'll just pick a rhetorical anthropomorphism that you feel comfortable with.
    So, you think: ok- I like elephants. They're big, and powerful, and they look all kindly and wise, and so then God's an African Elephant, looking all benevolently from his tiny little black benevolent eye. And then you think: Shit. Ganesh. Am I seriously incapable of original thought?
    So maybe you don't need to imagine God. Maybe you can direct your prayers to higher power as of yet unidentified, amorphous and faceless and absolutely obscure. (cloud nebula? ugh, No). I know. This brahmen thing. I'll pray to the collection of consciousnesses, I'll pray to the stuff which connects us all, enables us to share knowledge and memory. This thing on which humanity is not bound by space or time, this faceless, nameless, thing. I'll pray to that plane on which we all exist, not in physical presence, but in spiritual and intellectual contribution.
    Guess what?
you just prayed to the internet.

That's a disturbing thought, huh?

    I mean: in one case, this is apples and oranges. The charming idea... this thing beyond physical laws, beyond biology, a connective force, Humanity's invisible grid-work. If it were perfect everyone would have equal access and ability for expression and interaction on the web, and we do not. There are places in this world that cannot access the internet. Many homes in all countries do not have internet access. It's not an entirely equally inclusive club- but that's changing a little everyday as people catch on and learn how to do this internet thing, learn advanced computer languages, build computers in their basement- kids do this. The internet is probably more truly democratic than any place based in "reality". Anyone can publish anything on the web (except for some places in, say, China)
    Also, while honesty and candor are arguably easier on the web, they're not guaranteed, nor even expected. Some of us are candid and so relieved with the potential to be totally anonymous. Others are empowered to lie better.

But maybe people do, even, lie to themselves in their prayers?

    But is the internet the result of humanity? Is the internet a sort of example- this is what we are now, the largest number possible represented, the most possible democracy granted?
    OK. If it were. If that's a reasonable thought exercise...how much of this is porn? I mean, there's great knowledge to be found. There is small knowledge to be found. Most of the great, current, relevant wisdom is available- for a subscription fee.  Same goes with porn I guess. There are people like me, pouring out personal thoughts and vague ideas that no one really needs to read, or should, I suppose. Then there are more visceral examples of soul-bearing, in things like postsecret, and copycat projects across the web. There are sites, valuable, but exclusive to particular demographics; tiny little spherical social-organizations, there are networking sites like craigslist; sites for random amusements; sites for dating and... oh, more random sex. But if you look at the subjects that demand our collective attention the most, they give the distinct impression that people are simple and selfish creatures who want comfort and instant satisfaction.People who, in their most revealing honesty, are making a try to get away with whatever they can, however they can. I know there are avenues for random anonymous acts of altruism. But if this is what we are...

This is too long for digestion.
This is unraveling into inane chatter.

All I know is that I gave up and tried to pray, and then when I remembered I don't believe in a God, I dumped my thoughts onto a blog.

Maybe I don't want to hear everyone's prayers.

Behind tinted windows
(is your soul so dark?)
you consider the state of the union and light a cigarette.
The things I know, collected like tiny ball bearings, roll around on the floor of my mind.
They scatter and chase my nerve-endings:
        webs of tiny lightning, really, cross-hatching my skin,
                                                          invading my organs,
                                                          reverberating in my bones.

The spark flies through the air and I am staring.
A little shock of energy released from your fingertips to land where it may.
It strikes,
explodes on the pavement,
explodes inside my skull,
and I have a momentary view:
                                                    Curtains drawn, light on, windows clean and inviting.
    and with a shutter
             with a shudder,
All is as it was.

Joni Mitchell told me not to give myself away.
turns out I'm not a very good listener.

On a night like this, all I seem to be capable of doing is writing out drivel in an empty notebook, scrap of paper or failing all that, maybe a text-field. Whatever is handy.

    as if I'm good enough company for myself to swallow obscure self-inflicted loneliness whole. I like this idea of having no head. If I believe in the illusion of my self, my head is a steel trap. A prison with mirrored walls reflecting an endless repetition of me until I'm so sick of myself I could will myself out of existence just to be free of the constant onslaught of my own company.
 
It is better not to believe in the self. I am a point of perception and nothing more. My cells regenerate and I continue to be defined. There is nothing making sense of my self, no solid law of properties in me that will determine what I do next or where I will go from here, no simple truth to be gleaned as to the nature of me. I am in the best position to make a study of myself as a subject, and I have learned nothing. And so, it makes more logical sense to deny the fact of "me", I am only a receptacle for data. I am nothing.
    Everything else, I can develop a system for.

Laws govern others: movements, reactions, probabilities: I have a point of approach based upon observation, an epistemological idea of you and your probable significance to me.

You are solid. You are observable.
I am a concept. I am a consciousness. I am mysterious.  I am a figment of my own imagination.

I close my eyes and I flood back to myself. More me. Absolutely everywhere.

I am divided. It would seem that I either need to learn to enjoy my own company, or I need to learn to rid myself of my own company. Close my eyes, and be aware of the Brahman, or at least my place in the Brahman.
The world is a much larger place. There is much to be gained from existing here on a larger plane. My small and petty self cannot offer me the same opportunities.

Tell me about you.

I'm thin.
I don't mean "Hey, you're really svelte!" thin, or distance-runner thin, or typical female obsessive thin.
I'm thin like "Hey, check out my pointy collar bones! Look at my sternum!" kinda thin.
It's not hot- or if it is, it's only hot to perverts who can't handle women with body parts and would prefer them to resemble boys.
I hate it.

I feel like I'm 12.
I am tiny and ineffectual.
I am the most easily dismissed creature on earth. I am young. I am female. I am easily overcome. I don't look like I could fight back.
All I want is for someone to look at me and worry about my ability to fight back. I want to be a bull dog. I want to be sumo. I want to take over my immediate area by the sheer ineluctable nature of my BEING.
You know what would be good? I want to be BIG, and BLACK, and MALE.  I want gigantic biceps and fire in my eyes. I want an expression that clearly says "don't fuck with me"
Everything about my countenance, my expression, my voice makes excuses for my own existence. This body tries to take up as little space as humanly possible so as not to inconvenience anyone.

I was never meek.
I am opinionated and bold and over-confident and arrogant to a terrible fault.
I hold people to high standards and desire results. I am no doormat.
Except now I am. I am tiny. I am ineffectual. I look frightened and vulnerable.
If everyone else's assumption is uniform, then eventually it becomes true. Whether we admit it or not "your" opinion of "me" has a definite effect on "my" sense of self.
My sense of self is shrinking as quickly as your sense of me is shrinking.

This is for you. This is for you girls who think it's a good idea to cut calories and starve yourselves. If this is in any way my fault, If this thinness has anything to do with my own personal habits, If this is some sick twisted attempt at controlling my body, then I will absolutely never forgive myself. My only hope is that this is a temporary imbalance in hormones, because swear-to-god, loosing weight in order to "be thin" has got to be the dumbest idea I've ever heard.
You don't want to be thin. You might think you want to. The media might tell you that you want to, but you don't.
You want to be undeniable.

What do you say?

there are these corners of our egos. We've been there before, throughout the years. We don't like it there, it's dark, and scary, and twisted. We fall in there, like cartoon manholes. "shit, watch out for the dysf-"
we slip on a big interpersonal mess, the one that's all over the floor and goddamn! Here's this awful piece of my irrational frightened inner child, kicking and screaming and causing a general ruckus in my brain. (What's odd though is that only my inner child kicks and screams, I don't seem to remember doing anything so wonderfully cathartic as a kid)
But usually we try to a avoid ego. We don't want to be there- that moment where all you can think about is me!! There is less thought going on here in me land. Less discoveries to be made. Nothing new.  
Slipping on a mess, your own or not, distorts and cheapens thought. There's a personal bias now. An emotional beast to feed. An angsty pubescent to comfort. 

We can be terrible, inhuman people. We create these chains of deep and horrible pain. We fuck someone and they fuck someone else and we're all sharing this awful disease called malice, called fear, called mistrust. We spread it. It's cancer.

How do you say that out loud?
How do you make sense of that?