10.Jan.2003

artistic breakdown

--

still coming out of your mothers

Upside down.

"I have never known him to be lukewarm."
"Really."
"It's all about intensity with him, and then it just stops."
"That's about right."

"One of these days, I really am going to run away."
"Be sure to tell me ahead of time, I'll need to pack."
"That was beautiful."
"Thank you."

"Sometimes the things you say just make me want to cry."

"It's all about intensity with him, and then it just stops."

That's about right.

Coiling, emerging, running free, running through the afterworld.

"Why don't you just stop? Just. Press. Stop."

"I'm sorry I treated you like shit."
"That was months ago."
"I'm still sorry."
"This is confusing."

"I mean, the way you must be romantically attached to me-"
"I actually just want to sleep with you."
[pause, falter] "Oh."
"Sorry for shattering that please-ride-me-into-the-sunset-you-big-husky-perfect-male image."

Rolling and unrolling. Coiling, emerging, running free, running through the afterworld.

"None of us will be here in five years."
"In five years, I will be divorced, poor, and dead."
"I hope not dead."
"I don't see why it should matter to you."
"I still love you."
"Oh, that's not confusing at all."

Sometimes I breathe you in.

"...and trying to be friends afterwards is a nice idea. I've tried that before, and I like case studies."

I don't think you're getting my point. I don't think articulating would do it justice. I think I'm just a number, and I think my fifteen minutes passed, and I know he isn't you.

"Ok, first of all, what is that supposed to mean?"

I want to press stop, I want to rip out these insular veins and choke, and press stop.

"What happened to you today?"
"I'm sick."
"There's more to it than that."
"It's nothing."
"That's bullshit."
"It's none of your concern."
"I just want to know you're ok."
"It's none of your concern."
"Are you ok?"
"It's still none of your concern."
"Why?"
"Because I was very close to something beautiful in June, and then connection lost, access denied, it's done, it's gone. Pick a month. Connection lost. Over. Fini. Have a nice night. This concludes our broadcast."
"You're not ok."
"I can't speak. I can only wheeze my emotions, and it sounds like this: [wheeze]"

"Run. Fast. And far."

Here we go again.

--

I know they know something I know.

My throat has been raped by some random virus, and is now coated in layers of cherry-flavored oral anesthetic so that smoking is not as arduous. My ears are filling with the same virus so that everything around me sounds muffled. I am holding strange hours from above this perpetually cold alcove. My brothers are sleeping. I am decidedly non-plussed.

I would like to use blatant terminology to convey to you, dear voyeurs, what it currently feels like to be forever trapped in an increasingly bad Nine Inch Nails song. I will die trying to press stop.

To cast the cryptic messages aside, as well as the confusing quotes where no one, not even the people involved, have any idea what I'm talking about, I will go so far as to say that today I stood in front of the mirror for thirty minutes, staring at a pair of scissors. This rather stereotypical action took place only after I completed three projects for friends of mine.

While it's human nature to mentally omit all the positives while your brain is running itself in circles around the very same useless romantic tragedy, I would like to step off the merry-go-round of doom and request a refund.

Wait, whoa, hold on, stop, stop that. Hey. Yeah, hi, I'm talking to you. Cut that out. Language really is confusing, isn't it? Thanks for nit-picking. That makes it easier for me.

My ex-boyfriend talked me out of picking up the scissors; what he failed to recognize was that I actually just wanted to cut my hair. It's longer now, you see, stringier in a way. I dyed it red although it didn't come out red, and my ashy-black and gray roots are now coming back.

In June, I met this person who was immaculate save for one extremely fatal flaw. The other night, I finally delivered a speech to him he probably didn't want to hear, but I tire of biting my tongue. You can't expect people to be perfect. I've gone through life appreciating the beauty of imperfection, but it's really only led me here, to this javascript box where I expel sentences devoid meaning and merit.

I think it's called Artistic Breakdown.

I think all of you know what I'm talking about, despite some of you having the balls to pretend you don't.

It's currently 4:22 in the morning and my canvas is sleeping. I have this paint brush and a thesaurus by my side when I come into contact with said canvas, and sometimes I paint on him the weirdest combinations of words. He doesn't appear to mind. When he's lost in thought or despondent, he concentrates, sometimes frowning toward objects that aren't there. Upon me discovering this, I said I liked it. He said, "Good."

I've had this canvas for two years. I've heard the canvas moan. This canvas is lanky and I could make a feather boa out of it. I could also braid its canvasy hair. What the canvas fails to recognize is the fact I am not a visual artist.

Surrender, then start your engines. You'll know quite soon what my mistake was.

Art isn't always supposed to be something that smacks you in the face. Art is not supposed to be an intelligible neon sign. Art is reading between the tags. Art is weaving yourself through the chords of songs, it's not about the over-all structure, it's not about the skeleton, it's between. Art is subtle. What is poetry to some is just a jumble of misused transitive verbs to others.

Every moment you're supposed to recognize that change is necessary, and the future is directly in front of you, and the past, well baby, has passed.

I personally think that's bullshit.

I sit at a computer screen while minutes bleed and days form together to form one gigantic mass of uneventful glory. This action could be best described as "taking life for granted", but I've never been in a position to fully define what life truly is. I can only tell you what it is not.

I think the Higher Power handed me this pre-packaged envelope and I spit in Its face. I must have been drunk at the time, because I don't recall what Its response was. I think it was giving me anthrax in the throat.

To put this aside, what I think I'm trying to say and have been trying to say for the past two years is there is more to life than this. Dissecting my archives, to summarize, I've come from two really brutal relationships (including one that just recently ended and is trying to write itself out like it was ten years old, full on with rushed moments of disbelief and confrontation and, you know, I might be sick and menstruating and bi-polar, but this relationship did not impact me like, say, a long car-ride in someone else's car in June did), two lost jobs, I now have a minuscule criminal record (remind me to tell you the real reason they're being this hard on me, it's a real hoot), more holes in my face, and anthrax in the throat.

This is what it feels like to be bi-polar: You wake up confident, looking forward to a new day, creative energy bursts through your cells and then suddenly one thing goes wrong and you stare at a pair of scissors for 30 minutes (even though you really did just want to cut your hair, other people merely thought you were going to take severe actions in offing yourself, and then you start thinking, Wait, should I then really off myself now? But I digress), and the lows just get lower in that Fight Club Chuck Oh-God-I-Love-Him Palahniuk way.

Should I ever really have a breakdown, I want to have one of those non-normal breakdowns that has nothing to do with anything anyone has ever heard of, ever. Too many people break themselves in half for beauty, I myself one of them. Too many people are lonely or sick or poor or dead and the list just goes on. I'd like to put a stop to that. I would like, for all intents and purposes, to go down in flames. I want to spark this insanely long debate on living. I want people to look at themselves and say, Whoa, this is very not ok, now what? Instead of, oh jesus god it's not ok I'm going to die, because that's very banal.

I've read through my archives and come to this conclusion: This makes no sense. This is not a life. There are some mentions of the best Fat Free Milkshake, or "J"-named individuals, or brown-eyed boys, or Tan and Tone America, or spaghetti, or javscript, or cigarettes, or, what could be construed as a personal jab and probably is - oatmeal cookies and banana bread - or having sex with your friends who live in separate states, or constantly talking about reaching toward some sort of unachievable distance, and you know what? This isn't life. My all-encompassing depression is not life. My insomnia is not life. My fingernails and my innate ability to wax poetic on anything is not really life. Chasing one dream down until it crashes, then chasing another dream, that's not really life. Life is not happening in this chair, with my dog sitting next to me, looking perplexed and cute, and while it is distracting and I am overwhelmed with the consuming urge to cuddle him, it's still not life.

Running around in my head, remembering clandestine kisses delivered to me in dark alleyways, holding hands, candle-lit fuckfests to Led Zeppelin, the martyr complex, being peaceful with endeavoring to save Immaculate June Beast, silver BMWs, web-sites, all of this, this really isn't life.

So I'm asking for a refund. I'm going to press stop.

I can't see myself getting very far with the bone-animosity that I carry in my walk, nor can I see myself getting anywhere constantly offering tissues and collecting the tears of 10,000 men, nor can I see myself going anywhere while regurgitating sentences infected with prosaic madness and poetry and stream-of-consciousness and Vicks Vapor Rub.

So, should I not die from anthrax, I am going to find a new life in a separate state and when I profess I'm going to run away, I actually mean I am going to run away.

If you're coming with me, pack your bags. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I'll see you in your circle from a very safe distance.

--

time & machine