all bread is holy

"Nick Cade could shoot his arm full of crack and then no change would have occured-"

Or something along those lines-

Snapped me out of my ants-y-ness- and in three seconds- I thought of my arm, ripped open, heart bursting and bloated, Nan Goldin, and my mother.

Blinking back into the lecture, I thought of my career, and then the thin scabbing on my knuckles.

Good morning Good morning Good morning Good morning Good morning

Algorithmic Communities. 

I don't want to write. I want to have sex. 

And as you'd think this blog would simply be "brain dumping"- that my streams of consciousness are ever flowing and all exposed, I cannot bring myself to sum up the achey and sopping mess thats been occupying my brain into any productive poet speak. I have already told you, or someone has told you better, or perhaps you don't deserve to know, or I can't open that up to you yet.

I've been obsessive about the ecstasy of my physical form. I mull over fantasies, I roll around in bed at the idea of someone thinking about me. I worship my apple cheeks and soft legs and perky breasts and pet and play with my hair; thinking about how lucky the one who will one day indulge in my predispositions will be. 

I'd show them to you, but that would ruin the whole point wouldn't it? Beautiful things grow in secrecy, do they not?

Worship, honor. Value. Respect. These words tend to be the pin points of my thoughts. Every wandering idea of mine- from sex to friendship to longing and remorse- ends up circling around one of these points from time to time. 

Like the work of Anne Lindberg. Not the writer, the thread artist. The one who makes the installations that are the grand swaths of colorful thread- all neatly tucked away and knotted and looped into sweeping design and presence. On Google the two are summed into one, writer and artist. Anne Lindberg and Anne Lindberg. History will remember them as so.

I said I wasn't going to say any of this, but I did so. Hm. I guess that's the way things go.

All of my friends started taking adderall. My newest friends, the ones I meet at parties and say howdidoos to. They say it gets the work done when they're depressed. I should do it, I'd catch up. My lack of adderall-taking makes my depression lull over into work time, and suddenly at my howdidoos I have less to talk about. When I leave my room to go to her room where everyone who left their room went to, I don't have much to talk about. I could cut it all out, I could supercharge myself. And then my howdidoos and work would be better. I don't take advil when I have a headache. I want to know how long the headache is supposed to be there. I think it's one of those things. I know it doesn't make much sense.

Worship, honor. Value. Respect. At the last howdidoos, we started talking about dedication. Not exactly, that's how I was interpreting the conversation though. Senior projects, media studies, social media algorithms, community and the desire to track trends. Of wanting to know. Of wanting to belong. Here is where I could have presented my thesis. Or my manifesto. But I didn't. I think I wanted to save it for a better time. Worship, honor. Value. Respect. 

I sort of lost all my friends recently. Or, I'm not sure if I had them as close as I thought or even if I still have them. I would know if I asked. But I don't ask, because that sort of disturbs the sanctity of things. Worship, honor. Value. Respect. I was taught my entire life to accept that, sometimes, I just don't know. Now, as I live in my in betweens, I don't seem to know anything with certainty. Is that the way things go?

My life has been dictated through the idea of my mother before she was a mother. A woman I didn't know, who I was exactly alike. Now when I look for nannying jobs, I think about how much she loved children before she had one. When I go home and see her bloated and asleep for days on end, I think about how she used to live a busy life. She used to want to do things. I see etched into my future a woman who didn't get anything she wanted. How I was born and something in her died. How she tried to eat her own young to get it back. How I am half scar tissue and half uncertainty. 

Liz fucked her hand up real bad. She showed me her bubbled knuckles. She did it last year at this time, too. I looked meekly at the burns on my wrist from dropping a hot pan and back at her blisters, big like grapes. It'll get better, she tells me. She tells me cried for hours from the pain when I first happened. I gingerly touch the bruise on my hip as I write this.

Yeah.

All my new friends are surprised when they find out that I care about school. I want to care really bad, but some days are harder than others. I think about every second of my life layered on top of each other. I guess with all of it in mind I am an academic. Some days are just harder than others. Some days I pull myself out of bed to try and then I fight and end up back in bed. My bloated mother. Worship, honor. Value. Respect. It's what you see in the news. I almost flunked photography class this semester. Funny enough, a class my mom apparently did really well in in high school. I showed my midterm presentation to the class, something my professor said I should be able to "catch a break" on. It was about Nan Goldin. As I started talking about her, it felt like I was talking about myself. I did a lot of research for it. I was able to muse on about stories she told the New Yorker like they were my own. I showed battered women, laughing women, men dressed as women, men who became women, men kissing, dirty Brooklyn apartments and metaphors of vacancy. People who had to become their own home. A girl in class took off her glasses to wipe a few tears. It made me feel good. It made me feel disgusted.

“In the week of mourning that followed, I was seduced by an older man. During this period of greatest pain and loss, I was simultaneously awakened to intense sexual excitement. In spite of the guilt I suffered, I was obsessed by my desire.”

When my ex girlfriend and I started dating, it was while a person who had been groping me was outed as a rapist. In those days I had realized I had been groped. In between those moments, I realized I was falling in love with my ex girlfriend. I remember crying and being glad someone was finally touching me because they cared about me.

Worship, honor. Value. Respect.

My ex girlfriend and I were alone up in rural New York. Her car broke down and I told her where a mechanic was. The mechanic, by the fit of his pants and the gait of his stride, made it apparent that our kind wasn't welcome. He was going to do us a huge favor, so I fed him "thank you, sir"s, even if I wasn't sure if he deserved them or not, while he popped the hood of the car. He looked at the engine, and then the crucifix on my neck. To him, even with the gait of my stride and the fit of my pants, the addition of the cross made me look holy. Recomposed the image. To you, you'd still see me as my kind. I'm both. I think he still knew I was both. The cross landed on top of our conceptions and prejudices laced through howdidooes and "thank you sir"s. He muttered something to me about praying and the impression of luck. He let us drive away for the cost of 60 bucks.

Worship, honor. Value. Respect.

ANOTHER WOMAN I LOVED and I don't talk anymore. She screamed at me when I was walking upstairs to my apartment. Called me a bitch and whatnot. When I talk to others about it, I always say I have self respect. I won't let someone talk to me that way. But I still love her so. And I think about all the times my mother has wanted to hurt me, and how I still end up going home. It's funny how these things work. 

I've been afraid to write prose. I've been afraid to talk about bygone lovers. I've been afraid to want. Excuse me, for the next paragraph or so, I'm going to do it all.

Albeit which invisible hand had prodded us both here;

Through electric connection

Us being equally both horse and rider,

I imagine a benevolent hand has painted these countrysides,

And with a gentle thumb,

Cared to smudge out the Connecticut skyline.

With our eyes set on each other, 

Through silent direction,

You heel,

Sharp enough that your hide draws blood. 

And when you turn, 

I hesitate to lick what you had left behind.

I tighten the hold of my handle,

Tell her,

'Woo, child',

And scold her when she licks your trail,

But I let us anyway.

Last night I went to sleep sober, for the first time in a while. I smoke more than I care to admit. No wonder I am not seen as an academic. I have Little Edie-ified myself. In my head, I'm still a gentleman. As I fell asleep, I got paralysis again, it happened three or four times last night. This is relatively common for me, episodes happening a couple times a year. As soon as I drift off, my brain completely wakes up in a panic, and I can't open my mouth or move. I have to focus all my energy into jerking my palm, which is not only painful, but scary, because I am fully aware I am falling asleep, and in these moments, these three seconds of darkness, all I can rationalize is that I'm losing consciousness, and I am struck with this feeling of death. So I fight, jerk my palm, shoot up so I'm seated, and then lie back down to try again to sleep. I am always worried I'm going to get dementia when I'm old and be the type to fight all the time. These moments prove it to me. I know if I keep smoking I'll be more susceptible to these things, drugs can fuck with you in untested ways, possibly give you schizophrenia and Alzheimer's and what not. But if I indulge right now, it'll go away. Funny, funny, funny. 

I think when you lose someone, or lose parts of someone, it's like you're ripped off it. My friend, lounging on my couch, hands reached over her head, exposing her belly, vulnerable, cat like, told me it felt like she lost a part of herself when she broke her heart. I was warmed by her exposure. Into her healing wound, the part of her that ripped apart- that is being healed and scarred over, allowed me to touch. To be present with. Is that all I am? An exposed wound? Is that all we are? Healing wounds? 

Reminded, I am lucky to have such a friend. Tender. Worship, honor. Value. Respect.

I was ripped off THE WOMAN I LOVED and I moped around bleeding. She seemed fine, as if not bloodied at all. I began to worry that something was wrong with me. I began to be afraid of people again. Wanting blood. Wanting worry. Compensation. Wanting to rip everyone of their clothes to see what they had that was bloodied. I can't walk around certain places because it would prod at my scar tissue. I can't look certain people in the eyes who know I'm bloodied, but not what from. I want to be strong but I can't. SOMEONE I STILL LOVE said on the phone that everyone heals at different rates. That I'm doing my best. But when someone's best is better than mine, what does it mean? 

I think though, if someone had the magical ability to heal, to love with no consequences, wouldn't I want them to have that speciality? 

Alone, I have to tell myself, I guess there's something beautiful in my perseverance to love even when it bloodies me.

Glass tchotchke heart, wrapped gently in bubble wrap, shown to special eyes.

Worship, honor. Value. Respect.

The winter air dries out my skin. I feel it creeping in, my knuckles are now thin and scabbed and red and raw. At night, before I sleep, I rub lotion into them. In the morning, they heal. At night, I rub the lotion in again.

Worship, honor. Value. Respect.