I'd say that's that

I have been thinking lately alot about starting a project called "heart on the sleeve", in which I make a bunch of easily applied (read: velcro) patches that have simple emotional statements you wouldn't necessarily say out-loud, and affixing them to my sleeve as different emotional/ personal thoughts arose. I nixed the idea because its adorableness makes me sort of sick, plus I felt that explaining what you were trying to do would take longer than the application itself, and thus would detract from the overall impact of the action. It felt a little obvious, I mean.

I have been also thinking about starting a writing/reading series called "overtly confessional: sharing too much is caring too much" in which, yea, you could read stuff beyond journal entries... thoughts you think that are minute and inane and you would probably never write down in the first place. these little tiny, seemingly inconsequential moments of being. those thoughts you think that make you unique. But I haven't because I think I might be the only one who would want to read at it.

Both of these projects are excuses, metaphors, quick fixes, what have you, for having a crush. That is, I want to share myself with one specific person, but I specifically don't know how, and they don't know me, and its my habit, to have these intense feelings that lead to intense work/projects/trips/plans, these big dreams and imaginings and happenings and the "they" don't ever know that these fictional city-scapes and maps and dimensions and ideas are being constructed around them. Its my bad habit, because this distance is safer, and that constant rush of anticipation, of glances across the room, the agony and heart ache that adds such a silent drama to every chance interaction is addictive.

So I start heartsleeve projects and confessional rant nights. Because I have this energy set to explode. Because I want to share myself with someone, but I'll share me with the whole world instead.

Things to be thankful for, redux

Inspired by Starheadboy's post, and also a brush up on my "thank you thank you" post from a year or so ago.

Things to be thankful for:

- I am healthy, I am whole, I am here
(I am open, I am vulnerable, I am free)
(and holy shit, I'm happy)
-The exuberance/enthusiasm/excitement has not dwindled with age- in fact! It only seems to escalate with each advancing year (!yeow!)
-Train tracks to drink whiskey and walk upon, foreverfriends to walk (and, occasionally, sleep) upon them with.
- the last vestiges of the veneer of "cool" being stripped away and shed
- Being able to make good decisions ("immakingagooddecision!!!") for myself, and having them be supported and applauded by the people I care about.
- The people I care about being able to make good decisions.
- The people I care about finding solace, happiness, comfort, the inane, the majestic, the miracles, the magic, forever and always.
-Relationships with family/friends/lovers that evolve and expand, that improve and grow closer, that hum with honest and healthy communication and mutual aide, versus silence, stagnancy, gossip, and self interest. People wanting to be closer! People wanting to be healthy! I am still amazed by this. Its awesometown!
-My family, my family, my family- and their enduring support, stability, and sense of humor.
-The family we've created- the simple reality of having a core of friends that you can actually trust and rely upon, that you can plan a future with, that you can make promises to, and keep them (dare I say it.. the beginnings of a .. gasp! community!!??)
-Filthy, filthy, filthy smut talking, making obscene jokes and gestures, inappropriate dancing in public. Being lewd and crude and disgusting without hurting anyone.
-Ingenuity and imagination- and the flood of projects/ plans I'm working on or plotting out for the future.
-The fact that all the weird/nonsensical/bizarre/absurd/un reality/gibber/jabber joke making and story telling is understood and appreciated by at least some percentage of good people in this world.
-Being able to feel well cared for.

My love is not less

Thinking about Zach, even in passing or in reference, leaves a sort of overwhelming feeling of hopelessness deep inside my stomach. The sort of "deep inside" that seems to tickle your spine and extend to the outside of your flesh, through your back. It sweeps up and covers the sky, and, apparently, is heavy enough to stop the wind.

"never thought that I could find you so hollow"

In reflecting on the years since (is his departure my new "Year One"? that question is going to have to be left for a much longer/larger debate.), I think a lot about the decisions I've made in re: the future- or lack of decisions, what have you. I think about the year I "lost" weeping for him (I remember most the nights slumped against the compost bin out at the Awful Shark, which I know couldn't have been too numerous, yet seem the most evocative- perhaps it was because I was purposely hiding my strange drinking/crying binges from my roommates? Or was it because I intentionally curled close to a large pile of decaying nature, this being the period of time in which we all thought he was dead and lost? Again, probably a topic for further exploration at a different time).

"But this cup of wine
All salt and brine makes me sleepy"

I wonder a lot, if decisions would have made differently if he was around, and, in conclusion, decided its much like the time when I asked my mom if she regreted having kids (me included), and she said "its just a different road you go down, and, once this thing (kids) has happened to you, you just can't even imagine wanting to know what the other road is even like" (I'm taking liberty and paraphrasing a much longer conversation). And I can't imagine the other road, not even fantastically. This is the road. There is no other.

Talked with a friend tonight about the sucker punch chest ache your recent exes leave with you- how everything-every.single.thing.- reminds you of them, is tainted and touched by them- and how it never feels like it will ever go away or evolve or be something you can escape from. I counseled "time", which I know, I KNOW, feels like a cop out, but is the truth. This is how the "Z" word came up- its been years now (so hard to believe, makes me gasp in awe)- YEARS since the "happening" happened, and I still have dreams/nightmares, I still see "him" (doubles) on the street almost weekly if not daily, I still have huge questions about the where/why/when, and I STILL (see above) feel this huge tidal pull towards hopelessness at the mere mention of his name.

"Were you sleepless, tearing at the air?
Was the water everywhere?
Were you fretful, to wade into the room?
I'd been wanting to hear from you"

But! Above and beyond and BUT!

I now think about the wonderful things. I think about why I fell in love with Big Z in the first place- that initial pull, that strange magnetism- I think about why I care so much that he's gone. Why I CARE.

I think too about all that is wonderful, and awesome, and DONT STOP BELIEVIN' about my life now, and how I do have things and secret plans and wonderful people to hold on to, how drowning isn't an option anymore, and how, even when sucker-punched and surprised by the sadness he is still able to evoke, how most days aren't spent in sadness anymore, not like they used to be, and how, I do love him still, and, if I really LOVE HIM, and not some fucked up, selfishly skewed image of (him + me), or (him with me), or him (just exactly how I want him to be)- well, then, I should be happy for him now, like I would hope he is happy for me- because he is doing what he needs to be doing to be him, and be happy, and healthy, and whole. And if I love him, deeplymadlytruly, I want that which will make him the bestest.

Because we have to love them all for who they are, and not just who they are with us.

"A gentle torture to watch it all recede"

And the ability to say that, now, after all this time, these tears, and all this shit, is cause for happiness in and of itself.

"Hand it over
Hand it over
You're weary, lay him down
You did your time so thank you very much"

More Misc. snippets. Mainly 2005

"Those spontaneously contagious moments of mutual enraptured discovery"

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"Sometimes beautiful things can choke me. Its a catch in the throat, and I have to close my eyes against it. Every small thing I've tried to create has failed, because I want to be creating worlds. Then I remember- the small things are worlds unto themselves. And that we are creating worlds, we are creating worlds, we are, we are, we are.."
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excerpt from the david & hennesy short story

"and I said, without looking into your eyes, without watching you laugh without sex or sentimentality, I said "I love you". And I've said it before, and yes, I've said it before and meant it. But last night.. love had never.. tasted? that way before. The shape of the words felt different- singular- in my mouth. Like I'd lost a tooth, or my tongue, or a lot of blood. Dizzy feeling. I felt my eyes saying it, felt my eyes popping with the heft of saying it. I felt my fingers tracing it into your flesh. I felt it in my joints, in the way my hips moved as I leaned against the stove- I felt it in every pore of my skin. And it was the first time every iota of my body worked in tandem towards an object outside of my skin. You were the external I truly craved to have internalized."

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"I miss those versions of us we can't speak aloud about"

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"I crave the vulnerability brought by (carried on the back of) fearlessness"

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"I have separated the world into two truths. One seen, one imagined. In both truths, we are still great people. The only difference is acknowledgment. In one world, it floats"

things to be found, pt 2

goals, in the concretely abstract

1) the more love you give, the more love you have.
we studied love in depth a few summers ago (well, as much as anyone or group can study such a thing). An overriding conclusion was reached: if you really love someone, there must be a pure subtraction of the ego. A submersion of that which will benefit you in an effort to selflessly urge the one you love to pursue that which will make them happy (the stickler for most people is that, sometimes, while loving them is good for you, it may not be what they want. And if you truly love them, then, in an ideal situation, you would still continue with that same level of care and wish them the best. Doesn't happen often though). Not to the degree in which you damage yourself, but in an effort to truly attain a perfect sense of emotional grace- because thats what love should be, right? Mutual aide, a balance, a sense of longevity and symmetry and true altruism. Because that's how all of us long to be adored. Because once you strip away the games, the manipulations, the twisted cords of miscommunication, boredom, stagnancy, and self doubt, all that should remain is this pure, energetic vine of connection. Because that's how all of us deserve to be adored. This lesson must be brought back to the forefront.

2) getting/learning the most one possibly can from being humbled. Despite (or, better yet, because of) the heart ache of it.

3) continuing study of what makes the emotional physical, and how feelings can manifest into concrete actions/objects/places/maladies/miracles.

misc snippets: 1999-present

"We will teach and comfort and kill and love one another for the next million lifetimes, deal? Deal. Always."


"i like my brand of sadness, it will never ruin the world"

"We made hearts with our hands, with our flesh, with our fingers. AND WE ARE FINDING THINGS OUT.

Look for the strivers.

Our whole lives have been spent in searching. In silliness, in sullen days, in studious contemplation of things overlooked or, more often, best left forgotten. BUT WE ARE FINDING THINGS OUT. On the bus, on our skin, in the bath, in the bar, on the street, in the cracks, in the places in between."

more zach-era compositions and fragments

"We are failed people Zachary, and there is nothing noble or disgusting in that. There are no pretty people in this world, just beautiful and disastrous actions and hearts. We are pumping acid through our veins and designing love. And we are making mistakes."
---

"I think about the lies we told, and the truths buried beneath them. I think about flesh, and about coldness, and about the fine threads and seams on a mattress. I think about romance, and friendship, and the quiet love that lies in between the two. I think about the dirt, and your bones, and if i would recognize your face if half gone to the woods. I’d like to think it was green there, and so dense that you felt safely smothered. I’d like to think too, sometimes, that it was barren, snow filled, and so chilling that your visible breath on the air truly felt like it was your soul escaping, and that it was something you could catch, and that it was something you could lose. Other times I like to think of myself, driving up a dirt road, towards a far away vision of you, dust clouded, looking up from some work...and, as you move to stand, the sunlight shifts around you, and becomes like a beacon, and blinds me"

giving thanks, pt 1

How "Saying Thanks" Will Make You Happier

Things to be thankful for:

-dreams about owls, madly constructed teeter totting houses, and swooping birds we dive under the water to chase
-rooms tinted red, settled with dust, hot with ideas
-a scar in the shape of a question mark
-"that teenage feeling"
-monkeys
-safety blooming from uncertainty
-exhilaration, a heart that pulses
-shock waves that ripple from simple art of hands held tightly
-beautiful boys who hand me hummus filled pita sandwiches
-progress to pluto
-stars, galaxies unheard of and unseen, the possibility of flight
-sunlight
-fat, happy, twin baby nieces who love to read and leave me messages saying "hey lady, i wuv you", who create these ties that bind, who breathe meaning into "family"
-made up words, hidden code, sexual innuendo, volumes relayed through touch and glance.
-missoula, montana
-necks, napes, collar bones, the small of ones back, the arch of ones foot, soft spots behind the ear, the inpress on the side of ones temple
-subtext
-the smell of a used bookstore
-standing on a freeway overpass at night
-hot coffee in your hand, in crisp cold air, with no gloves on
-ridiculousness, giddiness, fondness, and all good things that end in ness

How i wish i could say...

... That I wish you were here.

for the first time in years...

For the first time in years, I am stuck sending transmissions into a perpetual void, with no echo but my own.

For the first time in years, my own echo isn't enough.

For the first time in years, I am near to tears over the most trivial of things, and pleased about it.

For the first time in years, I am losing my mind, over something and someone more than myself, over ideas and schemes greater than the self, over times and places and moments as yet un-lived, un-thought, never conceived, and perhaps never to take flight.

And for all the drama it causes, for all the embarrassment and stomach aches and restless nights, for all the potential heart strings snapped and 'wishing I could take it backs'.
I am happy for it, if only for it's validation and reassurance that things have not ended, that that pulsating need still beats, that all things once frozen can again be thawed. For the knowledge that not everything ended with you, and that my fancy and fantasy can once again alight, and begin again, and sustain its own arduous undertaking.

As we travel and traverse...

Everything is spinning and conspiring together, all in service of my own delight and eternal amusement. Is it possible to quantify happiness? I would only feel more if we were here, together, in one time, one place.

is it really so far away?

If you think I don't miss you, you have more faith in my heart than I.

It's been almost one year since you went un-missing. Did you think that would save us? Couldn't you see how far gone we were by then? Already too far gone for salvation's touching grace. But you were always one for the heroic gesture served only when it could do the least amount of good, weren't you, Mr. Steward? That nobility of the unnoticed.

I still have dreams. They rarely alter. That same dirt road, that same beam of light, that same small sanctity of promise, of potential, of forgiveness and peace. What strange anomaly, the conception of the two of us at peace. At peace with what? With ourselves? With our trembling natures? With our teeming restlessness? What would we be, if not caged in? Bigger people? Not better ones, that's almost for certain. And I'm at a loss to imagine us bigger. Those two unflinching egos, forever at war with themselves. Could the world shrink so much, to allow that permission? Could my thoughts possibly expand further? Could they reach that height? Could they cover the sky?

Some part of you might find it interesting to know that I am happy- or rather, conflicted and enraptured. For once, yes, unsure, but perpetually enthralled by that unsteady grasp. It might be of some small comfort to know that I am saying yes again- to life, to the grand scheme, to all that is unfathomable. That I am again beginning to want that whisper of tiny nothings, those eardrop confessions, the measure of another's breathe, my own palm against palm. That I have found more again than just myself, than just you, than just the rupture and tidal ripping of your loss, of my own loss, of those universes we cannot contain. That I am slowly beginning to dream again. Of other dirt roads. Of others waiting. Of seeking something more than a solution.

Still, I wish I could share some secret piece of it with you, even knowing now, that it would never be you, it would never be me, and it would never again be us. But those fractures remaining, perhaps they could find something far above all this to cling to, and maybe there could be one moment- one solitary single step, that we could take together, in time and out of it. Perhaps we could forgive ourselves just long enough to revel in mutual adventure, in exploration, the in simple ideal of having let ourselves just... go.