Space for another

There's space for another pair of shoes, but rarely are they found at this time of night. Cigarette butts fill the cracks in the concrete, and new skin fills the cracks I have made on my body. Looking at it that way, there should never be another pair of shoes, especially at this time of night. Girls who rip skin like paper, what violence could they do to someone else? I devour people. I take a lot. I want to know everything. Life stories, what you had for breakfast, your uncle's retirement plans. Take everything, but can never give much more than words on a piece of paper, some drawings, a little art. Capable of cruel actions, intentions. I take me with me, I take me with me. Through every minute or drastic transformation of my body, through every relationship (even the one with my cat), through every trip, vacation, or study experience, I take me with me. Kinda makes you wonder, kinda makes you question, when you go to the beyond, do you take you with you too? Do you die with all the feelings you suffered with, all the feelings you enjoyed? All the women who were like me killed themselves, you know that? All the girls who are like me now, we are all so similar, so unstable, and so scared if things go right for a few days or weeks (because they have a habit of changing too suddenly back). Will we be like those women? I don't know. I would like to be able to say "no!" and move back into a productive life, one where no one is afraid of these things happening.

1/16 (18w)

focussed, crude red lines

this body judged for all it isn't.

a truth even you cannot disagree with.

Couldn't see the sky through the clouds

Ever since my mom found out certain things about me I would rather she didn't know, a lot of paper documentation of my life and feelings has become mostly or completely digital. Some private, some public, or semi-public.

Today felt a lot like this picture. It wasn't a good day. I skipped class for no reason other than I couldn't think. I couldn't stand to be inside a small crammed classroom, even though I had waited a year to take the class. Shut down during my group meeting. Couldn't contribute in a meaningful way, couldn't think of the things I needed say. I don't know why I'm here in this city, at school, or breathing, when I can't even appreciate any of it.

For the first time in my life since the trick or treating age, I have some semblance of Halloween plans. As a kid, Halloween was always a stressful time of the year because trick-or-treating implied that you had friends. It was one of those nights when there was a lot of pressure to make plans, dress up and go out. As a twenty-something, it didn't change.

I haven't felt "normal" for two weeks.

It is discomforting. There are times when I am so motivated to accomplish great things, and I can see my future. Today, on the bus, I could see it all laid out. Spend this summer learning code, make zines. Get a job at a camp, or somewhere. Got to a few zine fairs. Apply in the fall for a new media grad program in BC. Hopefully get in, and go to BC for a few years. Get a good job in field. Go north for a few years.

I can't see the sky through the clouds anymore. I don't want to get out of bed anymore, and I don't know why. Fuck. I'm supposed to be the one who accomplishes things in my family. Everyone has great expectations of me. I want to accomplish things. My head hurts, and I just want to go to sleep. Nothing makes this better.

East Coast Dreamer

I have buildings, and she has ocean. We share text messages and letters, west coast dreams, and the same sky. We have fear, and talent. We are raised by people who don't always appreciate our need for zines, art, and adventure.

I ride busses, and she rides bikes. We both like to be alone.

A friend, is a friend, is a friend.

Circumference is equal to

You can have love and a lover, or you can have nothing like that. You can have friends and a mother, or you can have nothing like that. You can have a sister, and you can speak french. You can have love and a father, or you can have nothing like that.

You could be smart, and a lawyer, but it will feel nothing like that. You could climb up the ladder, but it will feel nothing like that. You could be grounded, and you could read books. You could become who they wanted, but it will feel nothing like that.

You will run away when you're older, trying to find something like that. You will meet people and wreck them, trying to find something like that. You will be reckless, and you will be poor. You will never get wiser, trying to find something like that.

You die for certain, and never find something like that. You barely scratch the surface, and never find something like that. You win some and lose some, but mostly you lose. You want it for certain, but you never find something like that.

Subtleties

I wish that there were more secret codes again. Maybe its the appeal of pins or band t-shirts these days. If you wear a shirt by a certain band, you're in the club of people who know that music, and can appreciate it.

I really like the idea of what these artists are doing: http://www.etsy.com/shop/hankycode

From their website:

"The Hanky Code originated in the 1960s in a series of gay leather bars around Los Angles, California. In it’s infancy the code was used primarily by gay men, specifically those involved in the BDSM (bondage discipline sadomasochism) lifestyle. The Hanky Code functioned as a color coded system for communicating illegal or stigmatized sexual desires, within the construct of top and bottom, or dominate and submissive (signified by the pocket the hanky is worn in). These small colored garments lubricated the wearer’s navigation through sexual relations, while simultaneously responding to the dangers those sexual relations play in terms of identity, specifically within an environment of sexual oppression. "

No one would know what it means anymore if you wore it, even though I'm somewhat tempted to buy one. Are there still sublte, secret worlds, or has everything gone mainstream?

Indication

(A young artist I admire.)

These words that I write out, they are drafts of present tense feelings always being rewritten. Usually never edited, they just get rewritten, updated, and presented potentially for the world, but really for no one. Isn't that the idea of the internet?

I wouldn't say this is the best indication of the "I" all the theorists inject into their papers. The "I" , I inject into my non-theories which are subjective experiences. Sorry. "This" refers to exactly what this is. The act of writing, the thought that my ideas mean something.

Am I more than my thoughts, or are my thoughts more than me? Are these thoughts I have right now something I surpass? Am I better than these feelings? Or, am I average and boring, and having these kinds of thoughts makes me slightly less starkly plain?

Everyone but me was learning theory today. After awhile second hand theory is like second hand smoke. Unavoidable, sometimes suffocating, and perplexing.

Cat and Chords

That awful noise is my computer recording the video. The other awful noise is the music. Need to get a new battery and dump some of the million things I have on this machine.

Where are you Sadie Benning?

Missed you by four months. I found your address from when you were a visiting faculty this past spring. I stopped looking in about January, and then you could have been found in spring. You are part of my history. You are still around. I have to tell you things, I want to hear stories. I read the same ten biographies. They all say the same things. I want to hear a story. I want to tell you a story.

I think I expected you to have a big career, a personal website, and a blog. I mean, I have a blog, so why wouldn't you have one? Maybe you do, and I just can't find it. I expected you to run into the world as only someone who was seventeen in 1990 could do.

I am going to send a letter to the university you last worked at.

Tell them

Tell them who I was. Tell them I never felt like an artist, but spent my whole short life chasing that title. Tell them I thought too much. Tell them I was something, someone, or on my way getting there. Tell them I was no hetero. Tell them what that means if they don't know.

Tell them I loved the band Wintersleep. Tell them I wanted them to play the song, "Dead Letter and The Infinite Yes" when I die, and at whatever service happens. Tell them just to play a lot of Wintersleep. I don't care so long as its Wintersleep.

Tell them I didn't really belong. Tell them all this as I am telling you. Tell them I was bullied until I bullied myself. Tell them I had scars because I lived, and tell them I was in a lot of pain, but not the kind that anyone can see or recognize. It's ok if you tell them this. This is something they should know about me. Tell them I would have been a better lover than before, but I loved no one enough. Tell them I drank a lot of coffee, too much coffee, at all hours of the day and night.

Make sure you tell them that when I rode the bus home, I rode the 1 bus home. Tell them I rode it all the time, and most of the time I rode it alone. I rode it home to my messy room, but I didn't ride it home tonight. Tell them I sometimes slept over at school.

Tell everyone I was great. I was great, really fucking great, and I made interesting things. Tell them I was interesting. You just had to get to know me. Tell them I loved the way my words and printing looked on paper.

Tell your penpals. There was this girl, she was so awesome. She was sad, but she was awesome. She sent great mail art. She was really good at mail. Tell yourself, tell your parents I existed. Tell them I was the girl who was shy, but not really shy. Tell them I was your friend if I was your friend. Tell them at the very least I thought I was your friend. Don't forget to tell them the story about the girl getting accosted downtown. The girl I saved, even though you don't tell the story right. Tell them I stood up for things I believed in.

Tell them I was a feminist and a theorist, and I made really cool videos and animations. Don't forget to tell them I made songs. I made beautiful, happy, and sad songs. Songs people loved more than they loved me. Tell them I had a beautiful voice. Try to describe it for them, even though I know you won't be able to capture it in words. How can you capture anything in words? Tell them that I said that.

Everything was short-lived, but tell them it was fantastic. Tell them I was strange. You know how I was strange. I don't mind if you tell them this because it was the truth. Tell them I was strange and I lost a lot of things, but I understood a lot. I couldn't break free from it all, until I did. Tell them I was upset at first, but I didn't mind. Tell them if you think about it enough, you don't mind.

If you forget to tell them all of this, just tell them it doesn't matter if someone is loved, or has friends. Tell them you have to feel loved, you have to feel like you have friends. This is much more complicated, and much more difficult, because all brains were not created the same. Tell them I didn't feel loved, tell them I didn't feel like I had friends even though it might have looked otherwise. Tell them it was a feeling that never really passed.

Tell them I apologized for everything that happened. They will know exactly what that means because I made mistakes that hurt them. I was sorry. I never meant to love too much or too little, to write mean things, or unwated things. I never meant to ignore anyone.

Tell them that life is inevitable, life is inevitably short. Tell them you never do everything you wanted to. Tell them that it is ok. Hug them for me, and tell them it is ok. You will tell them this, right?

(I hope this does not offend or alarm anyone, because its not meant to be read in that way. I am still going to be here tomorrow. In fact, I will probably see you tomorrow. I know disclaimers are supposed to take care of this, but I am too intense at times for my own sake)

"It would be weird for us straight girls, you know?"

I didn't know what to say when you said that today.

Then you said something else like, "Look at us straight girls talking about girls like that."

It's not that you'd care, it's just I thought you knew already. Y'know, the queer thing. Still, it would have taken no more than a sentence to say something, but I didn't.

Not that we still can't discuss feminism, eugenics and human rights like before, it was just weird to be included in those sentences. We talked about "othering", and how we had been othered, or othered people (intentionally or not), and I didn't want to other myself.

I felt invisible. I don't need to make a spectacle of myself, but I don't know yet where the middle ground lies for me. I know sexuality is just one part of you, and its important, but certainly not the most.

p.s. You're the queerest straight girl I know. Just sayin'

New old things

More nostalgic this time of year than any other. I have been searching through finder on this computer and typing in random numbers like 200, 999, 70, and seeing what pops up. Most of these were never put online, or anywhere else because they were too blurry, or not good enough. I think they are more real than the pictures with sharp edges anyways.

When you still lived at home

Earth hour in the old kitchen

Possibly the most beautiful girl in the world.

The show we went to when we were the oldest ones there.

You took this picture, but I edited it. There's still something I like about it.

Dans le bois.

and the Pope got a D.U.I.

And the way that I met you through a note card, it's just another way my life feels like a myth at times. It fits in with the downtown escapades and that job I had when I was 16 years old researching mythological creatures for an old European man. It's funny how you told me you thought of me, even though we stopped thinking of each other after awhile. It's like the way that I talk to the ghost of my grandmother sometimes when I am walking home. It's like the way that I turned that girl into the monster of me, and made her a ghost and wouldn't return her emails after she moved away.

I like the way that we talk to each other about our lives. Every opening line is a poem, a phrase, a little bit of nonsense that we pedal back and forth because we are writers. For strangers, it's funny how strange we are to each other.

Chere fille,

Parfois, je pense que ca en vaut la douleur. Parce que une jour, je serai libre, ou j'irai dans la terre au lieu d'aller nord. C'est tellement dur. Je ne dois pas etre ici, un sentiment que je me sens presque chaque nuit avant que je dors.

Et tu? Tu ne me comprends pas. Ce n'est pas ta faute. Je parle la langue des tristesses. Parfois, comme moi, tu es vraiment triste Et pour un jour ou un semaine je dis a moi-meme, "Il y a un autre, il y a un autre comme moi."

Le temps passe, et tu deviendrai plus contente. Et moi, je ne changerai pas. Je serai etre triste, et plus triste. Et je te disait, ce n'est pas ta faute. Ce n'est pas ta faute. Mais tu pleureras.

Ca en vaut la douleur. Je sais que ca en vaut la douleur. Pour moi, rien ameliorerai sans ou avec toi. Donc, pourquoi est-ce que je veux quelqu'un pour partager un vie comme la mienne?

Je ne sais plus.

Peut-etre ma tete est un peu trop pleine avec des idees folles.

Avec amour,

la fille qui a le monde.

I keep having dreams about penises. I don't want to go into details, but they are very vivid, yet not sexual in the way that you might think. Most of the time I am dissecting penises while they are still attached to the live male body. I cut open the penises to reveal a smaller one, then repeat this step. The male doesn't seem to care, and is caught up in some sexual feeling that is somehow related to what I am doing, but not entirely. Like they are getting off on something that is in their head and in their peripheral vision.

As of late, I have been feeling particularly unbalanced in a lot of ways. Unstable, distant, quiet. I feel like I am going through a lot of things alone. I don't have someone to talk to day to day, or I can't actually let myself talk to someone about non-superficial things. Well, fuck. No one wants to hear about how shitty you feel.

I can't trust writing things down anymore, I don't feel comfortable in my own house enough to express myself. I don't feel motivated to accomplish things. I don't see the point in giving up coping mechanisms which are literally the only thing I have been using to keep myself going.

Literally, the only fucking thing I have.