we squirmed on an absent-minded mattress
in an empty room; the sun would rise too soon.
my lungs would swell as your head rests on my chest,
listening intently to the panic i’d protest.
damp, i’d be tender, feigning tender love and care
naked and quivering, a passing hand through your hair.
“you have honest eyes” you’d proclaim with a sigh,
and whisper while dreaming, “come home with me tonight.”
as you drag me down i don’t make a sound
hand in hand, a euphoric kiss, the shuffle of unfamiliar bodies
squirming on an absent-minded mattress,
bliss.
posts tagged "writing"
when i was a little girl i was given the chronicles of narnia as a gift. i couldn’t have been much older than 6 or 7. we knew i was sick, we knew i was depressed, and i was no longer functioning in a consistent manner. i thought i was dying. my mother told me to start with the lion, the witch and the wardrobe. i hadn’t left bed in days. but traveling out of a destructive realm and into the oligarchic fimbulwinter, i experienced cair paravel lying at the mouth of the great river and conversed with the fauns, centaurs, minotaurs and dryads. i observed the beauteous communities of beruna, beaversdam and chippingford, the empire of calormen, the mountainous heart of archenland, the archipelagoes of the eastern ocean, and the wild lands of the north with the crippled house of harfang. i felt happiness. i fell in love with aslan, son of the emperor-over-the-sea. despite being a lion, he was all i ever desired in a father, a friend, a God. for the first time in days i had the drive to run out of bed, search every inch of this sordid world and find him. i would throw my arms around his mane, hold him so he didn’t leave, and feel safe at last. when he was beheaded, something inside me tore. i stopped breathing. i cried for hours. i screamed at my mother for forcing this upon me.
it took me days before i could read the rest, and although he returned from the dead, my heart was still broken. it was the second time a father had abandoned me. i haven’t felt the same since.
it’s 12:00PM, the TV’s dead and there you are drinking gin again.
my wrists still hurt from last night and the awful things you did.
there is no food in the house. is that all that’s run out?
the droning sounds of jindalee are weighing me down.
if i asked, “please fuck me?” then would you feed me?
if i dressed up as her, would you want to be near me?
while hidden under tangled sheets the sunlight filters in
shedding red and orange patches on the walls and on my skin
it’s all i can do not to wither and die
then maybe you would hold me and beg that i survive.
like i did with you that time in your van.
you shook the earth around me and i couldn’t understand.
real men don’t cry! yet you took me by the hand
and with tears in your eyes, whispered, “i am not a man.”
you are not a man. you are not a man.
i’m not sorry,
but i miss you.
i wish i’d left when i had the chance,
and didn’t get thrown to the ground
by this paternal romance.
WARNING: the following is nightmare I and contains events that may be disturbing to some.
it had been raining not half an hour before the students arrived and took their places on the damp soil in a designated lot. their pants would be covered with wet dirt when asked to stand up again. each allocated role was presented on a card that smelt of cheap perfume and a disguise decided by uneducated supervisors who didn’t make it as teachers. the card read, “name. age. movements. speech. thoughts.” in that order. without a sufficient understanding, each student allowed their instructions to control their senses and transcend them far prior to modern circumstances. the air smelt different. “1922” it spoke. the girls stood exhausted in bodies unfamiliar and warm. their bare feet pressed together, hair matted to their foreheads, the ritualistic practice of preserving a distant memory lingered. “showtime” the voice continued. it began.
//
they thought this was a sanctuary, that the gentleman would bathe them, dress them, feed them, until their childlike bodies permitted them independence, until there were no more paternal gaps to fill and each girl could enter the world as a woman. but in lines of 6 their knees grew weak and bruised from malnutrition, and with faces sunken with disappointment, the girls marched. marched into the kitchen, marched out to the garden, marched through their chores and marched back into bed. all the while stomachs rumbling for both food and affection. despite the careful routine, some moments remained undocumented. the squirming, the pig-squeals, the thrashing little bodies under thick trunks of man. hands cupping underdeveloped breasts and pressing deep into the ripening warmth of the children beneath. it was a mess to be slept in, a reminder of their sins, soiled in both unfamiliar and recognisable fluids. it wouldn’t be cleaned until the following week.
one girl, name neither known nor important, was hidden from the rest of the girls in a room all of her own. her mother knew her as the special child, the gift from God who fell too hard and bruised something deep inside that no one could ever reach. she was incomplete. she had been forgotten and would never be repaired. with her silence she abided by all the man ever asked of her, for her stunted growth provided further excuses to brand her half-human, half-abandoned. with her feigned indifference permitting his perversion her clothes were removed with precise and tender care, as a ritualistic procedure, a preservation and a fetish. dress torn from her skin and discarded with the remnants of her innocence, the cracked china doll lost and incomplete, with pinkish cheeks and tired limbs and nothing underneath. so tempted by her lucid unconsciousness he took her from the waist down and drew back all he’d built up inside from watching her tremble in her dreams. no struggle, no resistance at all, she kept him at arms length with a kind of tight tension around his loins he hadn’t recognised since adolescence. like a weed amidst daisies she was bathed and cleansed, afterwards being held as a father holds a sick child. lame and limp he sat her upon a rocking chair and with a slight push she rocked to and fro. the other girls would now be permitted time in the garden, a moment or two to pick at patches of brownish grass, observe the insects hidden beneath the soil and get their hands covered in dirt and pollen. some sat humming in circles, others walked alone, and some collected memories of families and home. but all the while the façade of freedom just masked the absence of one of their own.
he had saved her for something special, something magical for the two to share. something that would coil around his ligaments and give them a soft and pleasurable tug. he leaned her back. his hands were wrapped tight around the mess of hair tied into two braids. she had been dressed up for the occasion all in blue. he liked when girls wore blue. he liked when she dressed up for him. leaning just centimeters above her neck he removed his trousers and folded them on a table to the left. leaning just centimeters above her neck he removed his underwear and folded them on a table to the left. he hung with a tense awareness and felt the adrenaline creep forward and build into thickened excitement and pride. she was his creation, his little darling, little angel. with a moment of exhilaration in observing what was his he thrust himself deep inside her throat, pressing the pink of her tongue firm on his underside, caressing her braids and feeling salivation fill all the emptiness he had accumulated. but amidst his long-awaited pleasure trembled the half-girl who, whilst renowned for being dumb, was awake and choking in discomfort and fear. she squirmed. he had to pin her down. his moment was deteriorating all around him as she resisted. the pain escaped down her cheeks in tears. she didn’t understand. he didn’t understand. with arms pinned above her head and with a final call, she screamed,
“i can’t breathe! i can’t breathe! i can’t breathe!”
with the equivalent of a respectful bow, he accepted her defeat and let go. she was unhuman, all abandoned, lost for good. the final act of her liberation was taking what he gave and letting it drip down the back of her throat. he cleaned her face and kept the blue dress on for the next few weeks. he liked when she wore blue. now she would forever be wearing blue.
//
they were taken back to a wide, open space - a train station? - where, forced to take candid photographs of their feelings and friendships, they painted the events in bright and unrecognisable colours. this documentation would be placed inside exhibitions next to the previous group and the one yet to experience the daunting lives of the girls of 1922. the last school permitted into the tour created obscure and irremediable pieces depicting the heinous discomfort of living within a life long passed, illustrating the injustice needing to be rectified. and so the students scraped the surfaces of the aging canvases and it leaked excrement down unto the cement (whose?). upon acknowledging that they were not the first, nor would they be the last to feel the pains of worlds passed, their art appeared menial in comparison. would it be recognised as a depiction of the hurt felt by the original subjects? or did they simply mirror what they assumed their intentions should be? would their art be seen as a respectful imitation of the anguish felt? the train arrived. it was blue.
fingers
it’s 6 o’clock and nothing’s been said
in the cold of the sheets and the creaks in the bed
you keep asking me if i think it’s time to sleep
and i know, i know i ought to, but then you’ll have to leave
i don’t think i could let you say goodbye to me again
not knowing whether i’m a lover or a friend
not knowing if i’ll ever even know your name
your real one, not the one you tell me in vain
beside the guitar case and the lighter we used
to smoke the last cigarettes, i tried to paint for you
a picture of all the things i ever thought i knew
but it’ll never be good enough to give you
i’ll never be good enough for you to swallow
with the pills you take to be fine for tomorrow
and i’ll never feel your armor as you get dressed for the war
between you and your self-hatred, what good is it for?
please, tell me, darling, what good is it for?
actually, don’t, i don’t care anymore
i’ve been thinking about all the things i left behind
when i decided to be sad for the rest of my life
and now i wonder if it was worth it in the end
just to be my one and only “special friend”
for now i’m afraid to be on my own anymore
but i can’t find a wandering soul around here
and i think a friend is all i’m looking for
once i dreamed to have a house
just surrounded by the people in my head
that i created in that two sizes too small bed i used to live in
but always at the end of the day
we would have to say goodbye
and they’d go home, and so would i
all i wanted to do was play the video games
i wished to when i sat in rooms alone
and i wished that i could hold your hand
but now i’m far from home
i’m so far from home, far from home and so alone
sitting on a tired swing with no one here i know
it’s only me swinging and there’s no one here i know
please, don’t let go, i’ll fall and bruise my knees
is that what you’ve wanted?
you’ve forgotten all your manners, i’ll bleed if you say please
i called someone up once, a long time ago
and said, “dad’s still drinking and i want to go home
he touches all the spots you said to cover with your clothes
you’re the only one who knows
help me put my clothes back on and suffer no more blows”
but the receiver went dead and the voice inside me said
“no one cares anywhere, you may as well be dead”
with a cloud inside the skull that i used to hit on walls
i think i have the strength now if i chose to end it all
but if i did, i’d leave behind all i ever built
some friends inside the body that i buried in my quilt
i’d leave behind myself, and that’s all i’ve ever known
i’d leave myself alone, to fend all on my own
could i do that to the only thing i’ve ever known as home?
said angelo
someday, maybe yesterday, i’ll take you on a trip, and i’ll touch you ever curiously and taste your algid lips. i’ll show you coloured messes that the girls left in their sighs,
for they never said goodbye.
they learnt not to say goodbye.
listen in before the sun and hear their murmured cries, somewhat in seduction, as they try to say goodbye,
they knows that this is not the way, and yet it’s all they long to say!
but goodbye now means dirty hands inside a once clean mouth, stretching lips into a smile and holding their tongue out, dosing them on sertraline to silence all their cries, and making them forget that they ever dreamed to die.
trees and their leaves and the blistered grey sky
and the cars making music through the quivers in the ground
but the sounds hurt these ears and remove all the comfort
from the waste on the streets in this smoke-filtered town
existentialism
“existence precedes essence” - there is no universal, human quality that we all share. we are individual and alone, left to make our own means of existence and our own purpose. but what is this purpose? how do we find it? will it ever be available to us in a physical form? or is our duty as beings of existence to create it ourselves? because there is no manner in which we are all supposed to be, philosophers have spent hours and days and weeks and months trying to configure the universal question - what do we do with this being that has been given to us? nietzsche disregarded God as a ruling figure and decided that each human being should construct his or her own withstanding morals and not follow those set out in the Bible/by other societal means. instead, nietzsche developed the “übermensch” - a powerful being who disregards any pre-existing conditions and creates his or her own path in life. because guess what? he, she, you, i and we, are and will always be the only ones living it. the übermensche creates his or her own existence, because, mate, no one else is doing it for you. kierkegaard was a bit different in that he explored the notion of God’s relationship with each individual. kierkegaard figured that because there are no building blocks for existence, each individual should attempt to find a personal relationship with God and use this relationship to determine what his or her purpose is. camus was a bit of a cunt in that he disregarded both of these ideologies and said, “who the hell cares about the übermensch and who the hell cares about your relationship with god? in the end, no matter which existential path you choose, you will die. he will die, she will die, they will die, and so will you, so who the fuck cares? life and existence are meaningless.”
sartre expanded on the idea of existentialism by differentiating the two types of existence - beings that exist in themselves and beings that have to create their own existence. computers, books, pens; all beings in themselves. humans have to create their own existence because without this creation, they are, essentially, nothing. a human without a purpose is a nothing. so sartre was like, “you are empty, so fill yourself up with something, please!” you don’t want to be a nothing for the rest of your life, so do something and be someone. in the end, it is your existence, and no one else can tell you how to develop it. hitler is a notorious cunt, but at least he existed. he was his own person and he explored the concept of existence to his full potential. he achieved, he had a purpose (no matter how sinister) and regardless of whether his existence was good or bad, he had one.
of course this is a brief outline, but when i think over all the concepts and novels i’ve read regarding existentialism, part of me wants to give up on the spot. despite knowing my life is mine and it is up to me to do something with it, the underlying pressure of having to create something is both exhausting and daunting. what if i do it wrong? what if, in the end, my existence is meaningless and i could’ve been so much more? of course, the only way to get to that point is to live in the process, but i am terrified that i’m doing it disastrously. what if i actually do have a purpose that was intended for me, but i’m so far in the opposite direction? i can’t possibly know! of course there are those beings who drift through life with their menial accomplishments and don’t think of things like this. they don’t regard their existence as something worth spending hours contemplating; they just be. but of course there are others, like me, who are scared to exist, because existing means existing and it gives you some kind of unmeasurable importance and relevance. do i want that kind of pressure? do i want to be an integral part of a world i often long to rid myself of? do i want to contribute to this mass destruction we call living? i don’t know. i sometimes think about it, and in those times i wish i could be one of those others who just doesn’t care. but i do care, and i will continue to for as long as i keep on existing.
i suppose i could elaborate further but it gets a bit too personal from here on. if you have any questions about any of this, feel free to ask. if you plan on abusing me, remember that it’s your existence, not mine. if you want to spend whatever remaining time you have left creating self-conflict in others, the ghost of sartre will probably kick you in the bladder.
