[Author’s Note: I did not choose these quotes. The notebook in which this was written was a theme journal about desire and these were simply the quotes at the top of each page. It wouldn’t make a difference if you ignored them completely- they’re unrelated to my entries.]
“The cry of my body for completeness; that is a cry to you.” - Mary Carolyn Davies
I have to remember who I was before him. :::deciding which person to use::: you. Before I can figure out how I am, now. I’ve forgotten what life was like before you, even though I was always with you and always will be. This is an illusion. Incomplete. Lacking. You are missing. A man born blind does not miss his visual world, but a man who has lived without and then with and then without, again will never forget the precious treasure of his eyesight lost. It is like a permanent eclipse. You keep waiting and waiting for the moon to release its hold on the sun. Deep inside you know it won’t, but you hope. I still have hope when everyone else has given up. When he has given up. Am I noble or stupid? I’ve stayed outside for too long.
“You were once wild here! Don’t let them tame you.” - Isadora Duncan
I used to be funny. When I met Chris, he would always look at me like I was an idiot if I made a joke- never laughed at a single one of them. Now, this may not be his fault, because I have a weird sense of humor. The point is that I stopped telling them. Why did I let that change me? I sacrificed myself for his concept of the perfect woman. Or maybe just what I perceived that conception to be.
No, I changed myself; I’m just looking for a scapegoat. I have two very distinct sides: dark, depressed, cynical, cold, abrasive bitch, and lover, philanthropist, philosopher, secure, open and vulnerable. They’re so different they’re like polar twins. Once I destroyed my lighter, more playful side, all that was left was the dependent (and rather whiny) part of me. What a pity. Rolling on the floor, crying, stomach cramping funny, and it was fun to be that way. Completely random. But it was mostly fake, because deep inside I am dark. I shone light from every smile every joke every pore of my body but I am so full of darkness. What shall I sacrifice? Artificial light for true darkness? Outward shadow and light that is hidden away? Fluorescent lighting is the truest symbol of authenticity we have.
“Thou art to me a delicious torment.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Surges of emotion: floods that randomly well up within me and rush as if a dam had been removed and there is nothing I can do to stop it. I wish I could stop them. Trying would be fruitless. You’d sooner hold back the tide than your authentic emotions. My heart spurts every once in a while, reminding me that, if shriveled and broken, it is still there. I feel it when he touches me, when I see her in the hall, when I get his answering machine.
They come when I remember that my affections will not salvage my relationships. She will always lie to me, the bitch. And he will be the boyfriend who fucked around with my head; liars, the lot of them. I was so lost in his arms, caught up in the passion. Found until the hideous thought/emotion/idea ripped through the perfection of that moment; feed on my soul and tear me from the limbs I was so sweetly entangled in. “Is this how he touched her?” Make me shudder in emotional agony as my lover shivered in ecstasy within me. I cried when he came but I couldn’t explain it to him. I still cry at night, when no one can see my weakness. I don’t want them to know. They don’t want to know.
That’s what I hate: no matter how many tears I cry, no matter how badly I ache, I can impose neither guilt nor confession nor apology- there is NOTHING I can do. I turn to God who gives me no comfort; never has. I don’t see why I even expect or hope for it at all. The light blinds me. I turn to the darkness and I can see. Both roads are painful, I know that much. If I choose the wrong road, do I get to turn back? If I make a mistake, do I get another chance? And then they fade away as rapidly as they appeared and I can convince myself that I felt nothing. I never loved or hated or trusted. Never slept, never dreamt. One day everything will be okay. Time heals all wounds but we keep the scars.
“An intelligent woman who reads the marriage contract and then goes into it deserves all the consequences.” - Isadora Duncan
I had to wash myself; clean myself with Dove-softer-than-soap. To get you off of me, out of me, so I could be clean. So I could be softer. The mirror mocks my scars, which are not clean but tender, as if at any second they could split open again. I had to clean- scrub and taste the bright vibrant liquid; so full of life. It was like metal. So I could be strong and self-sufficient. But I am not. I am dirty and die (exist) in a reality where blood tastes like soap, and metal is softer than soap, and soap stains. Red marks- I am not clean. Scrub harder in my blood bath.
“Desire is poison.” - Mahabharata
There are things I must do. To get over you. Like going to college in Europe so that I can forget your face. I cannot do that when I see you every day. Lots of things. Immerse myself in my art form; breathe in. Breathe in the purity, because Music is all that is left of the holy and beautiful things that used to be abundant in my life. I am glad that I protected it within myself. I have to practice my darkness. I have to write and wear the brands of Christ on my skin. There are many who constantly, secretly wish to be human; seek to take a life that is not for them. I will taste the night.
Most importantly, I have to occupy myself so that I don’t think about you. My hands smell like you but we have not touched in two months. You linger on my fingertips- the ghost of caresses that fell away long ago. It smells like skin, unscented soap, Calvin Klein, and vaguely like sex. Your smell grasps desperately the plain cotton sheets where I lie, and I, equally desperate, crawl on top of my comforter that does not smell like you. I have to get away.
“You know that when I hate you, it is because I love you to a point of passion that unhinges my soul.” - Julie-Jeanne-Eleonore de Lespinasse
It’s only fair that you be given a taste of the agony you impose upon others. But life is not fair. You continue living well with a girl on each arm- any girl, every girl, while I can do nothing. I can be nothing to you. Assuming you even have a conscience, which I am beginning to doubt, hating you would only make it easier for you to throw off the responsibility you owe me. I want you to suffer as I have suffered. Not as in depression and suicide but in loneliness and instability.
“Where passion is not found, no virtue ever dwelt.” - Maria Brooks
One day it will all be okay. I think it’s very important to keep in mind that pain does not last forever. Someday, I’ll be able to look at him without bitterness. I may even be able to love another. One day, I won’t wake up crying. There must be something in my dreams that causes that. One day I will be fine, I can see that, but it’s no consolation to how I feel now. All I can do is wait- write, hide away in music, run, study. I have to find a way to keep my mind off of you. He was the only one I let in, which is why he is so valuable. If I observe people, watch and study them, I might just figure things out. If I had listened to June or Shannon or any one of the people telling me to stay the fuck away from him, maybe I would be better off. Maybe nothing would change at all.
“Virtue has need of limits.” - Charles de Secondat
He looks so beautiful in his you-break-you-buy case. I cannot afford him. My fingerprints stain the glass. The glare from the florescent lighting harshly interrupts my reflection. My breath, so warm and full of life, shatters the glass. I didn’t realize how cold he was or how that cryptic chill affects everyone around him. I didn’t even touch it. She sits on top of the water tower, placed there by a well-meaning hand like some sort of figurine- well-polished and breakable. Immobile. A thin layer of dust, quite fittingly posing in the moon shine; everything is safe in her sunglass world.
Grow! Shake off your dust and become something new, be it good or evil so long as it is something. Dance on your stiff limbs, curse with your sealed lips, and create for yourself a reality you can love.
“Great vices are delightful.” - Duc de La Rochefoucals
Morning. Another day shatters against the horizon. The stench of it rises from the rotting earth, spoiling in the sun. The moon steps down from its throne, allowing its inept successor to reign, immodestly and improperly. The sun vomits upon the landscape a grotesque rainbow melting, running, dripping; destroying my peaceful night world. This is why I choose to lurk in the shadows. True beauty is recognized only when it cannot be seen- absence.
Today I will be okay. I know not how long things will stay that way. But today, I will be okay, and that is enough. For today. Perhaps there is something in my dreams that influences how I feel when I wake. Or perhaps not. Whatever the cause, I will not take this for granted. To think that, all this time, I thought that being with him would bring me peace. I shall move on. Not with him and not with anyone else- I want to start again. I want to be self-sufficient. I want to be alone; go off by myself and figure out who or what I am without him. I want to be alone with my thoughts until every day is okay. Alone, but not lonely. You cannot be lonely by yourself if you are yourself. I will force myself to survive without him so I can survive. Without him.
“I’ll be a park, and thou shalt be my deer; feed where thou wilt, on mountains or in dale; graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry, stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.” - William Shakespeare
There is something inherently sad about him. He carries himself so as to look like he is not picking himself up. We both pretend we are fine. With Chris I was consumed by my depression instead of respecting it. I was sad and struggling with God without talking to Him. I was blinded by flattery. I was in love with a magician; I was an addict; I was what I thought he expected me to be. I was wrong. I am powerful: red hair, hazel eyes, white skin- soft skin. Perfect body that demands to be looked at. I’m a musician, a poet, lover, daughter, runner, intellectual, entertainer, a woman. No one can influence me without my permission.
“The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.” - Walter Bagehot
Sometimes I feel so helpless. I want to change my world. I want to make a difference, but all I can do is stomp my feet and shake my fists and throw tantrums in my head. No one hears them so I write them here where no one reads them. I slip them into conversation and no one is listening. And now I feel embarrassed. I am ashamed of my emotions. We cannot erase our feelings, actions, or words from time. They are held for all eternity so God can pinpoint any second He chooses to illustrate my stupidity.
“Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.” - Mae West
In my mind, I used to see myself crawling down this seemingly never-ending path in the forest. I remember how bright the sunlight was, shining directly onto the trail, but without warmth. Without comfort. And the silence you could see because there was no one and nothing but me and the dry, dead leaves that made no sound beneath me.
Now I envision the same path; same trees; same sunlight. Only I’m running. And I am not lonely. I am alone but not afraid. I’ve learned to look between the trees for others. Sometimes there is a deer or fox, or perhaps even a snake. And I’ve found birds and rats and serpents alike; none of which are bad- just different. And I’ve learned that you have to notice them because they are suffering, too. Sometimes the snake bites you. You still have to keep on because, even while the venom courses through your veins, you are committed to the run that may or may not heal you.
I’ve learned that your muscles get tight and cramp up. I’ve learned that it’s good to run against the wind because it forces more air into your lungs. And when the resistance falls away, the air becomes thin and stale and your body forgets how to run without it. Sometimes the wind is at your back and you take it for granted and trip in your haste. Sometimes you hurt yourself. I’ve learned that there is no wrong way; it is all the same path and it looks basically the same, depending on how fast you’re going.
I’ve learned that I don’t know where I’m going. And that I don’t care, so long as I’m going. It is never okay to quit. Quitting isn’t wrong, it’s just not okay. If it were okay I would do it, you understand? And that, in the end, you decide what is right and what is wrong. I’ve learned to run with other people but not to let them trample me, and that you should never leave your path for theirs. And that, eventually, they will all go back to their own paths and leave you to yours. I’ve learned that it’s liberating to be alone. The runner’s ultimate wish is to be able to run forever. Eventually, we all get tired. I am tired.
“He takes girls that are full of darkness and tells them they’re full of light.” - June regarding Chris Miller
I sat there, alone. I’ve always wondered how it would feel to eat alone at a table for two. It’s not that bad. The food tasted a little better; maybe simply because I was paying attention to it. There was jazz. And, for the first time since the music department collapsed, I found comfort in that. There was something that attracted my eyes to the ceiling fans. Around and around they spin, unable to break away from their prisons of centrifugal force, unaware of their captivity. I felt as though I were looking at the entire human race. There was no one to share this with. No one to share the corner table, the empty half of the non-smoking section, or the jazz, or the ceiling fans. All my thoughts go to waste. They would atrophy if it weren’t for these journals.
I cannot decide whether or not I enjoyed it; the empty chair and all. I think I might have hated it. Perhaps both. I enjoyed the company of myself, for once. There is no one out there that I would have wanted to fill that uncomfortable oak chair, except one. The only one I want is him. I love him. Even after what he has put me through, he is the only one I am capable of loving. It will always be him in that chair.
“Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.” - M.L. Mencken
It’s chilly this morning. Sad that I’m awake. I can never sleep anymore. When I can, I wake up between every dream. I hate looking at her. Really, she is guiltless because I know that no woman could resist him. I want to blame her. I want to blame him. I want to blame myself. If I were prettier or thinner or happier or smarter or funnier; in reality I know there’s nothing I can do.
“Be good and you will be lonesome.” - Mark Twain
Love… the entire concept of love is so painful and hopeless by nature. It is not something that can be helped. I shall tear out those pages. Clean! Refreshed! I can feel the hauntings of those pages behind this one. I ignore it with the traditional grace of the South. I live in a world where I get to decide what the components of reality are- MY reality. And if I don’t want to acknowledge the existence of West Virginia, then that’s my business (no East Virginia). I create something I can deal with.
Delusional? Maybe. Fun? Definitely. Like a god, I too can create. She is the god of herself. Knowing there is an existence higher than theirs, the two ignore each other. The paper is her universe. Handcrafted, a papier mâché creation, well-honed with paint brush and razor blade. With the ink writes a book. With her blood forms a race, and her very breath rises high enough to surpass the boundaries of space and give her song life. She is a musician and she is saved by the savior she creates.
I do believe in God. I believe that Jesus came to save and damn. I believe that He has the choice of who He wants to save. “Thus, as the Potter may choose to form the clay into a vase, also does He not have the right to shape it into a wastebasket? or to shatter it upon the ground and discard it?” I am not mad at God. I love God. I have simply given up hoping to be the vase, you know?
I love nature, beauty, music, and all the countless things in His existence become evident. I am not bitter over what I have been denied. I seek truth. I believe that there is more truth out there than exists in Christianity, alone. I want all of it. Love is not something you fall into; it is something that grows. I must be fed. Christianity, at this point in my “faith,” is not keeping me full. It could be an excuse but I don’t think so because I am getting drier and drier. It is my fault. And there is something inside of me that sits at the back of my mind and waits- waits for the appropriate time to attack me and all I can do is stare right back at it. Maybe bare my teeth and wait for the visions that will start soon. I can feel them coming.
“The raging fire which urged us on was scorching us; it would have burned us.” - Casanova
There is nothing more intimate or beautiful or pleasurable than sex. I remember my first time with him on the beach. How badly it hurt at first and how quickly the whole silly ordeal was over. I remember how I bled for two days. I remember the second time at his house on his lap, and the floor, and the shower. His car. So many times I already have lost count. The last time we made love, gentle and sweet, he rose up within me. Encircled in his arms, he loosened my hips from within- sweet agony. I would never have guessed he was so big when I met him since he is muscular but very thin. Nine inches long (at least) and almost as thick as my wrist. Even in those moments I knew he did not love me.
I suppose I hoped that if I opened my thighs to him or if I allowed my tongue to linger on him in a phantom caress, he would at least let me be near him. I had hoped that my body could cry out what you could not accept. You accepted everything else. You seemed to handle it well when I guided you into me and worked up on you. But you can’t handle it when I look into your eyes and tell you I love you. So used up. I’ve never felt this fucked before. And you know, it was good. You did fuck me mighty proper, Chris, and every time I enveloped you I hoped it would at least have that much meaning.
“His kiss was like white lightning. A flash that spread, and spread again, and stayed.” - Eddie Chris
Thin, clear flawless diamond in the company of a marquis sapphire. I know because I’ve looked. I’ve witnessed the jewels. A diamond set in a ring; the ring that the diamond gave to me. The diamond set in the platinum that graced my finger- clumsy fourth finger. The ring that went with me to work to school to shower to bed everywhere. It shares my world. Becomes natural. Sparkles less.
One day the diamond shone in a different way. It reflected. Glass. Glass in a silver setting sitting gracefully at my finger- inept fourth finger. Drunken fourth finger. If I do not wear it, questions arise. When I wear it, no one notices. I forget. I no longer gaze continuously at it, and when I finally do look down, there is a rock in a brass ring marring my hand. My finger- my ambidextrous fourth finger.
I pull it off and shove it into my pocket. No one sees. I can’t see. I feel it. I try to remove it but it’s a part of me, growing heavier. At home, where the eyes of the profane cannot challenge my version of reality, I bore a hole into it. Use my fingers- my strong fingers- straight through the rock. There is a hole. Why does it still look like a diamond? I know what it really is! And with that rock, I make a necklace.
I cut his hair. Braiding the fine strands of gold through the rock, I then place it around my neck. People notice. I brag about how I made the chain; my chains, with my hands- my deft, precise hands. Mother tells me to throw it away because it is garish. I keep it. And then my best friend tells me he saw someone else wearing it. It is now too heavy.
I think back to the days when my beloved boulder was a diamond. I have a loyalty to it. I loved it so much that I’m willing to love it in any form in which it presents itself. And exhale loudly to prepare myself as I lift with my arms- my powerful, well-sculpted arms, the boulder onto my back. I stumble but I continue on because, at one time, it was a matchless jewel and I am loyal to the death to those I love.
I trip. Friends help me up. Some offer to remove it. Some insist on trying to carry it for me. All are denied. MY DIAMOND! And before I know it, there is a mountain. My body- my frail, breakable body shakes, exhausted with the effort. The burden. My love for the aching. I will love the diamond if I kills me I will love it. Diamond. Worthless mountain. Crushing me.
“Desire, even in its wildest tantrums, can neither persuade me it is love nor stop me from wishing it were.” - W.H. Aden
I hate going to a therapist. It’s so degrading! Telling a total stranger your innermost thoughts, deepest desires, and most longed-for wishes; who came up with that? Or, in my case, making up some that sound semi-normal and respectable so she’ll decide my parents were overreacting and I won’t have to come anymore. I should have been hospitalized at least four times but I’m not going to tell her that. Then I might have to go twice a week. And I hate being clinically depressed- it makes me feel so defective. I just want to scream I AM A PART OF THE HUMAN RACE! but life is unfair and the way of nature is unjust. There are worse things. I always know when it’s coming. And it’s coming. It’s going to be twice as hard, alone.
“From their eyelids as they glanced dripped love.” - Hesiod
I had this dream last night. I wake up between every dream sequence so I’ve been remembering them fairly well. I was a mighty warrior, beheading people left and right in my mutinous court. Then, the evil queen, a thin old woman who was supposed to be my mother, ordered her guards to me. I fought through them, swinging my broadsword furiously. Right before the blade hit her, someone caught my arm. Instead of being merciful and beheading me, they poured something on my face that would disfigure and burn me like acid, and locked me up in the shoe closet. After many, many years of cowering before her in my monstrous condition, I finally saw myself in the mirror. My face was flawless. They had tricked me into believing that I was disfigured so that I would not try to escape.
“Blaze with the fire that is never extinguished.” - Luise Sigea
You are coming over to collect my skim-board with the split so you can sand it down for me. Just when you think you’re safe, all the memories come flooding back. I desperately want to remember. I want to feel the shape of your mouth again; breathe in the vanilla spice scent of you that I would recognize anywhere. I don’t think it’s such a good idea. You are not my “friend.”
How easy it is to convince ourselves that beauty is the same thing as goodness when it is not. And clearly it is not, yet we continue to condone that grotesquely distorted definition. Because that which is good should be beautiful. That would be justified. That would be fair. Sadly, Lucifer fell. I’m sure that he is still beautiful because I’ve seen it happen to others. Beauty by evil is made more beautiful, still, regardless of the devices used.
“Friends, you are lucky you can talk about what you did as lovers. After my darling put his hand on the knot of my dress, I swear I remember nothing.” - Vidya
June is one of my favorite people. We talked on the phone tonight, and sometimes we couldn’t even speak because one or both of us was crying or laughing so hard. Mostly we talked about Chris. It felt good- to talk and to cry. My tears only come at night. Right before I fall asleep I cry, because I am so exhausted with the effort of keeping up this happy-go-lucky façade. I am too tired to hold them in any longer. If not then, then in the morning I have stains on my cheek.
“Love, bittersweet and irrepressible, loosens my limbs and I tremble.” - Sappho
And again, today, for no particular reason at all, things are okay. I don’t want to write “fine” because it has a negative connotation to it. I saw him and we talked and I drank some of his Coke and it was okay. I felt nothing. And that is good, I think. Well, as good as things can be. I was glad I saw him when wearing this outfit- tight black dress, ankle-length duster, trademark sunglasses.
June is upset. She gave me this play to read for monologues called Look Back in Anger and it is the life of Chris Miller. This guy, this terrible abusive man is such a wretched bastard, but everyone sees him in this beautiful broken martyr light. Once strong and independent, the woman is now a subservient wife, trapped. She finally leaves him and, the moment she steps out, she is replaced by another woman. The immense wealth of betrayal and pity- she loves her unborn child and goes back to him. I feel fine. I don’t really feel at all today. I am not dead. I am not dead. I am not dead.
“There may be some things better than sex, and there may be some things worse. But there’s nothing exactly like it.” - W.C. Fields
Wandering purposefully, she knows where she is going; knows that she is going. Strides along on her own personal highway in her own personal country carved out for her by me. When we are maimed, like a lizard’s tail- we heal ourselves. I limp to the edge of her road. She stops, looks at me with kindness, compassion, and slows down so that I can keep up. We walk together in silence and I search for the object of my purpose. The sky is cloudy and defensive. I shuffle through the humid limestone dust, the wind blowing strong and cold, bringing the scent of heartbreak to my senses. A nation of women, handicapped, scarred and broken, all merging into the steadily increasing traffic, tapping blindly with their canes, hobbling painfully. And we are all the same.
“My Lord, you once did love me.” - Macbeth
And some days, it is not okay. I am not okay. Every fiber in my body contracts- tightens, knots up in these furious little strongholds in my neck, shoulders, back, and now I have a headache. The feeling I have is its own creation, like the steel brackets in a skyscraper, tightening. The wind blows and thousands of tons of steel and glass weigh upon that small piece of metal. If they were not flexible, the entire building would collapse. This anonymous emotion, unrecognizable, is so potent that my hands shake. What is this? I grind my teeth subconsciously. Collapse; everything is coming down.
I can see the truth. He has fallen but there’s still a heap of glass and steel- remains of the hearts he has broken. Everyone will be able to see the mess but it will still be shiny and attractive. They will flock to him and cut themselves and throw their wasted bodies into the pile. They won’t realize what has happened until, impaled on that razor-blade rubble, they look around and see the carcasses and they will regret. But they will come, anyhow, and it cannot be stopped. The only things that warm the icy glass are bated breath and passionate sighs; the fresh blood of a new kill. He wants to be warm.
I anger myself because I know that if he apologized and asked to come back, I would forgive him. I feel helpless and weak. If I didn’t have to see him or the bitch he fooled around with every day, it would be easier. Eventually, I would forget. I am restless- without rest. No matter where I am, what I am doing- restless. I’ve got to go for a second run or something. I can’t get comfortable, or convince my leg to stop shaking, or settle down, or gather my thoughts long enough to tell them to shut up so I can calm down.
“We are like angels till our passion dies.” - Thomas Dekker
I miss being a Christian. It’s satirical for me to go to a show in a slinky black dress, ringlets of red hair, and two mehndi wings between my shoulder-blades; waxen wings. Like Icarus, I flew. It got hotter and hotter until I realized I was not flying up into Heaven but down into Hell. My makeshift wings; broken wings.
“Virtue is insufficient temptation.” - George Bernard Shaw
I had a terrible dream last night. I was on my side, the freezing water running in cold, hard streams down over me. My arms crossed protectively over my chest to cover my nakedness; to cover my shame. He walked in (after all, it is his shame, too)- saw me with eyes wide open, like a breathing corpse, and turned off the water. He picked me up in a fluffy white towel and my arms fell away from my body, blood running down my chest from my wrists. They were trying to hold in my heart; keep it warm with all the blood. It was warm.
And he gathered me in that pure white towel (immediately stained and ruined by me) and carried me to the bed where he set me down. He covered me up, found bandages and gauze, and wrapped up my arms as if he could put all the blood back in my veins. Tenderly, yet impatiently he did this, and with a certain measure of irritation at the inconvenience. The silence was shattered when I finally choked out, “I am broken,” which coaxed a nod from him.
He crawled into the bed, silently- extreme torture demands it. That kind of sorrow is mute. He laid with me and together we shivered in the cold- not touching, but silently and separately grieving our loss. My eyes stared blankly at the wall, large and grey, a delicate rim of red encircling my lids as evidence of my tears. He lifted himself up, leaned over me, and placed a delicate kiss on my forehead. A kiss that said I’m sorry. It is unfortunate. I feel awful. I don’t love you, but I’m sorry. He rose and left me alone. He left his own house- just to get away from me. I grew dizzy. My bandages wet. He strolled out to his car where she was waiting; leaving me to die in the bed we once made love in.
An Ode to my Father
My father is one who can throw a football with my brother, pick up my sister from dance, and listen to my new aria without making any of us feel cheated. My father can hit a baseball anywhere on the field: he tosses it up with one hand and swings into right field, mid-field, or sends a pop-fly to the short stop. He can teach a kid to swim and a dog to heel. My father makes knife throwing graceful. Sometimes I feel ashamed. Not of him, no, but of the money he spends to send me to a therapist. I wish I could be as rewarding a child as he has been a good father.
“Whoever has loved knows all that life contains of sorrow and joy.” - George Sand
I miss music. Even the saddest notes gave me comfort. Now I have resorted to ink on paper. I hate my major, and struggle to separate school from all other individual and extra-curricular music. When I’m training with Kate, I feel a tiny hint of what used to define me. Every reason I existed is contained in “O Del Mio Dolce Ardor.” Joyful pain; beautiful, sweet music is like liquid fire boiling within and forcing itself up and out of you. It is too bright and hot and wonderful to keep contained in a mortal body. You cannot contain something like that, even if you try! There’s something inherently generous in music in that it is created not only for the composer but also for the instrumentalists, the singers, the dancers, choreographers, audience, and stage that reverberates with sound; for God and the angels and all the creatures of Being.
“When she raises her eyelids, it’s as if she were taking off all her clothes.” - Colette
She stands still, condoning her defilement with her silence. He stares at her hungrily, itchy fingers- dirty fingers, remove her garments one by one; the soft little piles of cloth falling away. He leers at her blunt, soft nakedness, and she looks holy. Makes him feel holy to take her.
He enters her, gently piercing her untouched purity, shimmering and coming in the wetness; flooding the angel with a sweet rivulet of warmth. She shivers, still with the cold of a careful fuck- so careful it almost doesn’t seem like rape. They touch with dirty hands, and you are covered in my blood. I couldn’t resist your insistence or the ecstasy contained in you. It was entirely sexual and the bitterness in my touch made it that much pleasurable for you. The purity of pain and innocence lost is undisguisable. There was something so pathetic and sad in that, because we were both victims. I have to wonder sometimes, what does a man feel inside the warm, pink folds of a woman; what do you feel? I’m too sensitive to pleasure to enjoy it.
“One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.” - Jane Austen
There are days when you’re glad to simply be alive. There are days when you’re ambivalent and don’t really care. There are days you don’t particularly want to be alive. But today, I very distinctly want to die. I want to give up. I never want to have to sing another note, or write another depressing poem, or finish another journal. They say suicide is for cowards. I’m a coward. LET ME BLEED! Set me free. Oh God, someone please just release me from this. Let me die or let me live. Nothing can out-weigh the overwhelming desire for death. The cries of depression for suicide, for a sacrifice of the flesh, are made of the purest, undefeatable passions.
“I never loved another person the way I loved myself.” - Mae West
Love makes you do a lot of stupid shit. I hate the way it feels to be touched by him. Today he hugged me and I hated it. He used to encircle me with those strong, gentle arms, as if he would break me if he squeezed any harder. In the end, it seems he prefers a sledgehammer.
“Desire and longing are the whips of God.” - Anna Wickham
It is a great day to die: partly cloudy with a wind chill in the seventies. When the clouds are out, the dead can walk the earth. Unfortunately, I cannot die today. It is beautiful and they are unsure. I have too much unresolved to sleep in peace. My life is so bleak. I am going to skip school on Wednesday to go see Chris’s play. I don’t want to see him ever again but I am drawn to him. I am incapable of hating anything so beautiful.
I am suicidal yet giddy and hyper. The silence overwhelms me. I am waiting as patiently as I can. I feel lightheaded and high off of the tears. I force back the euphoria of pain; euthanasia, and the stillness of my body. My eyes are weary of seeing. I see flashes of light when I close the lids as if a great storm had thrown itself into a tumultuous rage inside my mind. I am unable to think or concentrate on the simplest tasks. Maybe I should just kill myself and spare myself the agony.
Silence snakes its emptiness through my ears, into my head; seeps into my soul and I cannot sleep. I have to sleep. Maybe there’s another way. Maybe I could go through treatment and drop out of school, get a G.E.D. and go to a college nearby. And sacrifice every dream I’ve ever had for myself. I cannot bear to tell him because then he will never come back- never come near me again. He has already gone and I’m so blankly, starkly, hopelessly alone. I can’t tell him but I have to. Lord, please have mercy on my soul but feel free to justly take my life. I am suppressing the urge to cut, cut away, cut it out.
“Serving one’s own passions is the greatest slavery.” - Thomas Fuller
I am not going to crack. I am not going to let this break me. But how can I dictate something I can’t control? And I have no one. I am a shameful whore and I deserve to be punished. I deserve such a bitter end. Nothing should change because of this. I am under normal conditions; alone and under these conditions. Why should it change now? Am I supposed to run to him and cry and tell him things he doesn’t want to hear? If he cared, he would’ve kept his promises long ago.
I don’t want him to care, now. I want reality. For once, I want Chris Miller to be the cold-hearted asshole that he is. I believe in evil. I believe that there are people who are born without souls. Sometimes I would see this look on his face- this hideous, terrifying expression that crawled onto his skin, and it frightened me beyond words. It was like an actor who had dropped character. And I want to believe, more than anything, that he is a good man. I want to believe that he is compassionate and loving, and that he is fully aware of the impact he has on those around him. I want to believe that he feels bad for Lily, June, me, Karen, and however many others there may be. I want to believe, but there are no grounds for it.
I do not eat I do not sleep I have no desire no will no need to. I am not hungry I am not tired. I am restless. I run as much as possible to keep myself occupied. As Louise Glück said: “A woman’s body is a grave; it will accept anything.” Including shin splints. I hate the loneliness and the ugliness and that image in my mind of black and light blue and I confess I hate myself.
“Longing chains me.” - Indian Love Song
She wants to be self-sufficient and be able to remember things without writing them on her hands, though she forgets to breathe. She can butter her own baked potato already. She wants to be independent but then she spills her milk with those chubby arms. She wants to be beautiful but she cannot see her own body. She can’t drive, and can’t part her hair straight, but she’s a big girl now and she can take care of herself.
“If two people love each other, there can be no happy end to it.” - Ernest Hemingway
I love him, still. I think maybe that’s superhuman. I love him even though I know that he is undeserving, and that he does not, will not, and never has loved me. I am nothing to him. Sad that I have to add him to the list. And he warned me, “You know, there’s no happy ending to this.” I just didn’t know it would end up this poorly. I love him more than our horror story. I have nothing to live for; therefore nothing can be taken from me. Here’s to miserable endings. But my sad ending is my own and no one else’s; I am entitled to grief just as he is destined for happiness. I am bitter. And I accept responsibility for it.