SheFallsSoftly

Deep down I really love pigeons. They’re scruffy and scrappy and opportunistic… If anybody is out for itself it’s a pigeon. They’re also strangely gentle in soft coos, slowly fluffed feathers pruned.. My mother would never let me touch the feathers  left behind, would wipe off shit from benches before I sat. Pigeons were dirty, I was taught… But I’d sit outside and feed them popcorn and stale bread for hours, just watching them teeter around aimless, impatient… When I threw them crumbs, every bird would flock for it and one little sick broken bird would always be left out. There’s one in every bunch, broken leg, damaged wing… Something defective. I’d attempt to toss food to just it, but inevitably some other birds would steal it.

I don’t want to take that little bit of something that’s been offered to you.

I guess what I’m saying is survival is a trick that not everyone has figured out yet. Like a pigeon stealing food from its friends… I’m doing the best that I can.

I don’t want to damage that one last hope that you have left… but this is what I need to live. I have a feeling you’ll survive without me.

I feel as if I have no history. I have no collective past to call back to. My grandfather used to tell me all about boyish ways in golden days. The days of youth are not so clean and free as the generation before. I remember my supernintendo fondly, not holding hands in the dime store.

I told my friends this, they told me all about the feminists, about “I am woman, hear me roar.” How can I be proud of a heritage which I disgrace, all pumps and frills and lipgloss? Equality is an ongoing history that I have no part of.

Others have age, race, religion, ethnicity. I am Casey. I am a part of the Northern European Imbred Poor. I was raised atheist. None of the traditions mean anything anymore.

I celebrate my heritage in empty corporate holidays, I wear my identity in designer clothes. I am American and I emulate perfect identity-less beauty, I have second helpings at every meal. I waste. Constantly.

I am American and I will turn back the hands of time with chemicals and scalpels when I feel too old. I will suck out all of my fat and throw it away to lose weight. I do not know hunger. I medicate through pain. I have a winter and summer wardrobe.

I imagine that once my ancestors wore a tartan… My mother tells me I’m not very irish. I wear my red hair, pale skin, freckles like a question mark. I know who I am, but have no idea who I was.

And half jack.

Those words (tattooed on delicate skin, a part of the body favored by him) have been my mantra for so long that i’ve forgotten when exactly i chose them… And yet there it is, like aimless liquid i move too quick to quite fit where i am. I move, invisible, it’s the leaves rustling, water rippling that leaves me seen.
I was just a child then, i say now, just sixteen and scared of so much feeling. So i followed a different course, came to this wide flat plane where i thought i’d be still, but blew round and round like a dust devil…
but where does He come in? He; the ex for whom i mourn profusely. Simply put, once he did, and now he doesn’t.
when, not so long back, an act of whimsy led me back to him (not He) my hands were bound, but upon returning I’ve found ( in and through him) not just wind, but skin… Like a spirit testing possessed bodies I movedcand surged and found connection, but that skin… Well, I left it with him. Disembodied now, noncorporeal before, missing what I never knew I didn’t have.
how do I love?
constantly.
with the passion and terror of some broken god
who, on nights like these, reminds wind of skin
in hopes of comfort, but only brings longing.
it hurts.
give more to me.

Well looky here.. A public post. How novel!

Sorry that I’ve been so incredibly absent of late, I’ve been trying to piece together how I feel about the world… I still haven’t, but I thought I might clue the world in to a few of my thoughts.

More than anything, I’m tired of being lectured by so many people… I know that breakups are hard. I know that it’s probably a bad idea to jump right into something new. I realize that I’m probably doing things wrong, the poignant thing is that i just don’t really care right now. I’m not going to act against my intuition even if it is wrong most of the time… Whatever I do will get me to where I need to be, even if I get a little banged up on the way. Thank you all for all of your advice, just try not to get upset at me for not taking it. I’m trying to do this as maturely as possible while still retaining some aspect of who I am.

Who I am.. that’s such a curious concept these days… I sent Billy a message right before the breakup promising to change a thousand different things about myself if it meant that he would want me in his life. If I can promise my identity away for stability, is there anything at the core of me worth saving? Probably. It’s hard to try to live for yourself after living for someone else for so long.

Regardless of all of that, I’ve been having fun recently. Been on a whole number of dates with a certain boy, seen many of my once-estranged friends. I had a ballet class with Pseudodance last night that was kind of a trainwreck but fun nonetheless. Leila’s a bad ass.

I’m looking for a new job. If anyone has any non-waiting jobs they think I might like, they should clue me in. I’d like a desk-type job so that I don’t have to be afraid that my incredibly variable income will fall through.

On another note, in the spirit of not keeping secrets I’m going to go ahead and reveal my side project that I’ve previously been keeping quiet. I’ve applied to be a Suicide Girl, my first photo shoot is tomorrow. I think it’s an interesting thing to do, and an experience I’d like to have.

Work is still dead. I will still get you drunk if you come in. Why must you forsake me?

I won’t lie.. I only wrote publicly in the hopes that it would help me write some poetry.

Recently, I’ve had such an intense obsession with art that I’ve almost lost myself in all of my dabbling. I feel myself trickle like water or mercury through interests in painting and drawing and dancing and modeling. This may not seem strange, especially not for me, not until you begin to realize that I’ve stopped writing. I’ve stopped writing about everything–about my day, about myself, in poetry, in journals, even in my planner. I haven’t written out my plans for the night in maybe a month. I don’t know what caused this newfound need for visual art in the days previous, but currently I feel disheartened by my sheer lack of intensity. Sylvia Plath was published in national magazines while she was in highschool. I’ve managed to slip pieces into a few random periodicals that are likely out of print now, but never anything even resembling what she’s done. Her short stories were good enough to be featured, even though she submitted about 50 of them before being accepted. 50 short stories! I don’t know that I’ve written enough of them to enter into double digits and she wrote 50 that she deemed good enough to submit within just a few years.

She also wrote, though, after she had reached greater maturity in her writing, that a few good poems a year seemed like a lot to her. I, of course, have not entered anything resembling maturity in my writing, but I understand that feeling. The one glowing beacon of beauty that will anchor you for months before it floats so far in the distance that you believe you’ll never again see anything like it… Oh, I’ve been there… I want to saturate every instant of my life in such unbearable beauty that it seeps through the pages and pictures and movements and leaves trails like watercolors or spider’s silk behind me so it can be traced and understood and formed together into a singular image of the motivation and passion and interest and amazement and joy and rapture of my life. I want every instance of my life to be a discovery in how to do something that no one else has done.

 I think I stopped writing because I was sick of writing about my day. Once a month I would come here and force myself to type out a few pages about recent activities, but I wasn’t finding expression anymore. Not really. Maybe that’s why I’ve stopped using my journal… In the first few pages of it I explained that I would be using it to "keep calm" to learn to be "more sane." How guilty is it necessary that I feel about my depression and hurt? I stopped writing poetry because it makes me hysterical. I chose that word intentionally. Maybe I will start to use this journal in a new way that isn’t just a rambling explanation of how the people in my life affect me. Maybe I’ll start writing again, something new and different that I’ve never tried before. I’d like to learn to write fiction. That seems important, somehow.

Mad Girl’s Love Song was a villanelle. How on earth did she manage to disguise the form so beautifully?

So, Carnality Ball is the big news du jour. It happened last night and was ridiculously awesome. I guess I’ll give you the line by line?

I got there at 8 (right when it was supposed to open) so that Nicole Moan could tie me into my corset (which I bought about a week ago). Because no night is complete without me doing something ridiculously stupid, I locked my keys into my car and therefore left my money in there too. I had the good sense to bring my ticket with me, though, and Billy had a spare set at his apartment only a few miles away. I did, however, get to hang around carnality without my money or phone for about 2 hours waiting for him to show up with Andrea and Chris while Rebekah and I struggled to get my corset onto me right and talked with a porn star among others.

I managed to miss the dance performance by OU’s modern dance company, but caught Perpetual Motion’s arial stuff. I thought it was really interesting to watch, lots of incredible acrobatics, but not really my bag as far as dance goes. I also saw Pseudodance’s performance. They went up twice, once at the very beginning to be painted while dancing. They were airbrushed by Nicole Moan’s father. Apparently after this performance Leila was tipped 5 dollars by a random woman, thus inspiring the vicarious bit of esprit d’escalier of the title of this post. Their second performance was absolutely incredible. They did essentially 2 married pieces, and one other right after. It was a very interesting take on bondage as a form of looking for connections (I think).

The fascinating thing about Pseudodance/Kabaret Falschtanz is the way in which they regard sexuality. At their Kabaret shows, they make fun of it, they get hurt by it, they engage in it. They confront sexuality head on. At their Modern shows, they engage sexuality in such an incredibly raw way, so bare in their portrayal of human nature. In their song set they were being tied to things and each other and blindfolded, stranded away from the other dancers, and they would reach out in the most mournful way, when they would finally receive touch it was only with this look of deep sorrow on their face. Leila and Lynna did the most heartbreaking piece I’ve ever watched atop a spinning platform, just wrapped up in eachother and making the subtlest expressions and movements, turning, turning, turning, needing, needing, needing, but seemingly never getting quite what they are looking for.

I was absolutely stunned by their work. I always am, though. In their set Leila cut her foot and danced through it. That was pretty hardcore on her part.

At some point, there was a whipping demonstration on stage which I watched for about 5 minutes before getting inexplicably uncomfortable with the situation. I’m not entirely certain… regardless, about half an hour later they were demonstrating on willing audience members and I played mistress while my leashed Andrea got beaten. It was quite the event.

Somewhere in all of this mess I bought myself $20 worth of raffle tickets for a gift basket that included a ceramic corset by Nicole Moan, a bunch of movies, some buttons, a bunch of condoms, and some sex toys. I had to stay until 2 am to find out if I had won the drawing (oh my goodness exhausted) and actually did! I now am the proud owner of one green flame corset, and one lovely purple one. Fantastic.

It was a long night, but was terrific. I got hit on by dozens of boys and ending up claiming anyone I knew around me as my significant other. I got called beautiful more times than I could count. I did the makeup of several people, got some dressed, did some hair, and we all looked stunning. I got to watch a lot of what turned out to be less "sexy" in a conventional sense and more "philosophical" in the sense that every part of show forced me to really consider what sex meant to me, what sexy was to me. That and it was all good fun.

So at our first Open division tournament, lindsay and I went 3-5 on a whole bunch of close ballots. I thought we were pretty amazing.

I’m starting my new project for next semester, I’ve kind of got big plans for debate? I’m pretty excited about everything I’m taking on, I kind of want to be good I guess. I don’t know that debate is the thing I want to be doing the most, but it’s something that I’m good at that I’ll do for now.

All of these "where am I?" "who am I?" "what is my purpose?" questions recently roll like water off my back, Just doesn’t seem to matter anymore. What am I trying to know better anyway?

Today I wrote a personal ad, as an assignment in class. We were supposed to write to the music that we search for. Here’s mine:

Seeking pensive melodies wrapped around wistful words that will make my stomach drop. First connections are everything, simplicity is key. Must be willing to touch the tender spots until I don’t know if I’ll scream or cry, and to coax the tears out on lonely nights. This isn’t about satisfaction, I’ve been satisfied before. This is about the unfulfilled passion, the heart wrenching agony of wanting something you know you’ll never get.

I don’t always do things because I think they’ll be good decisions. I do probably about 50% of non vital daily activities solely because they’ll entertain me and I know they’re bad choices. I embrace life as a vaguely entertaining dramatic farce. I presume that everything I’m feeling is fake, that I don’t mean a word I say *really*. Of course, this is the nihilist in me telling me none of it has any meaning, nothing can be true. As long as I can think, I can doubt, and as long as I can doubt reality never quite hits tangibility.

With all of that in mind, let me feign a tear for the past and some hope for the future. Let me say that this is hurting me so deeply, and I’m so sad that I had to do it. Let me pretend like I won’t be able to sleep at night.

The problem is that everyone is writing their own farce, so the part I’m playing is always getting misinterpreted by my critics. Oh, the pain of being an artist. I play honest and genuinely exposed. They interpret as crazed and obsessive.

Let me put it this way; I don’t want him back. Hell, I don’t even want him in my life. Doesn’t mean my characted isn’t obligated to show lots of remorse and even have a dramatic crawling back type scene. For the moment, this is where my script is leading me, and right now I hope that it keeps leading me the same way, no looking backward, no self doubt, no sudden relapse.

What I want, or more accurately what my character is scripted to want, is to stop thinking all of the goddamned time. I want to stop worrying and asking questions, and pondering philosophically, and I want to stop being this type of intelligent. I know lots of very booksmart girls who have never once questioned their existence. I want that. I want peace of mind, and simplicity, and I want to really have a unified vision of what I want that doesn’t involve going back in time and changing all of these atrocious choices I’ve made.

I am angry right now. I had my feelings hurt, and I feel exposed and humiliated. I am bitter right now because what I thought I wanted is turning out to be something entirely different than I had envisioned. It isn’t what I wanted at all, it is some gross charicature of one aspect of what I wanted. Angry and bitter are good motivators when it comes to making changes, and I have been pretty certain for a good long while that this change had to be made.

I’m really no good at goodbyes. What I wanted to say in that conversation was not what I said. All I really wanted to say was "I am so much better than the way you treat me. I do not like the part of you I have found, and I don’t want to know it anymore. Go fuck yourself." I always add lines that just clutter the meaning and the feeling. Likely, even if I had gotten that far I would have added on a  good "Someday, I hope you pull your head out of your ass long enough to be happy," but it really wouldn’t have portrayed the selfish self preservation that I’m indulging right now.

I’m the sort of girl that loves a challenge. Maybe I should keep my challenges rooted in academia from now on.

Missing someone, really missing someone, starts when you look through pictures of the two of you together, and you stop noticing the way your hair’s a mess in all of them. The goofy look on your face, how fat or thin you look, if you can see that wrinkle, all of those details just melt away and you get caught up, not in yourself and your flaws, but the memory of the skin and hair and eyes you’re looking at… When you remember the taste of fingertips, the warmth of skin, the shadow of a kiss. When all you can see is the person you want to be with more than anything.

That’s only how it begins, though and it gets so much deeper. Talking on the phone, they’ll make a joke that warms your heart up, and you’ll laugh so hard you think you might burst, and then maybe, just maybe, you’ll reach out to touch them in gratitude for that moment, that feeling, and those words. They won’t be there, though, and you’ll remember that you are a thousand miles away from being able to say thank you in a language that makes sense to you.

Maybe late at night you’ll wake up, and slide to the other side of the bed, seeking chest, hands, skin, and by mistake pull the extra pillow close. Still nearly sleeping, you’ll start awake, wondering why it isn’t them you’re touching. You’ll look at the clock, the walls, and you’ll remember, and it’s hard to feel more alone ever than you will at that moment.

There are a million tiny little things that will remind you, an urge to retort to some friend with an inside joke they wouldn’t understand, a sentiment that just can’t be expressed in words, but mostly the loneliness at night. You’ll feel isolated, and you’ll feel far away, but you will also feel how real this has become, this need. This passion. This entire thing… You can say I don’t need just anyone, I need them.

I came here because I wanted to learn to let go of one person… Maybe instead I’ve found how to hold onto another.