SheFallsSoftly

I am sitting here trying to write something brilliant and hesitating with every word. I want to phrase this all perfectly. I want to say it just so, but all of the words have awkward edges and I just can’t get them to fit right.

The world is still and soft with snow and I hide indoors with him. Our edges are awkward, but still we fit.

It’s been a silent-under-covers-whisperings-secrets sort of week. It’s been a drunkenly-singing-90’s-pop-songs and a guitar-hero-burlesque-rehearsal-cheeseburger kind of week. Every moment a blur, but every memory in devastating detail. My mind like an absurd melting clock in one of the paintings on his wall.

The persistence of memory, indeed.

Regardless, my skin is alight and the sky is dark and I’m alone for a few moments but not really. Not like I was here. Not anymore.

Even in the absence of any permanence it is deeply gratifying to know I can meet another person who makes me feel this way. Still, I hope it sticks.

I’ve written this
And I cannot write this.
Ink tattoos the paper skins,
Closing distance that we won’t bridge.
I have lived in your house.
I have slept in your arms.
Still the secret yawns around us.

I cannot write this
But I write it.
The way you touch your coffee cup.
The scent of the skin
On your throat.
Not a millimeter stretches between us.
The silence crushes my breath out.

I cannot help but write this;
You asked for it.
We press our bodies so tight
A sheet of paper couldn’t slip between us,
We press harder, the motions violent
Pulling and scratching, needing the closeness.
The secret is unharmed. We have bruises.

I have danced with the secret at the center of the circle.
I have moved in its small grasp, and swayed, entranced.
We circle the fire, our movements swollen and fierce,
And in the center of our circle, smoldering in the flames
Is a secret I have yet to embrace.

I cannot write this
And yet I write it.
It is hiding beneath your tea cup.
It waits inside the cabinets,
Folded among the linens.
I can hear it in your heartbeat.
I can taste it in your kiss.

I’ve written this
And yet I write this.
The slip of the secret’s kiss,
The fire’s hiss.
Your fingers on my spine.
A delicate lie.
I believe you.

I must not write this
And yet I write it.
In this endless stretch of days and nights
This desperately short life
I cannot know you
And still I know
That you’ll forgive me.

So. I’m leaving in 14 days.

It’s a little strange, the world feels like it’s still going on. I still spend my days at work, my nights with friends. I still sleep endless hours, still opt out of parties because I’m too tired. The sun still burned my skin, some words still feel too right on my lips, I still can’t finish a poem to save my life.

The tone of everything, though, it’s changed. Billy and I begin small arguments but stop short. Who wants to spend the last hours fighting? The girls in the troupe are all clamoring to get the last bits of my time, finish one last dance, sew one last costume, watch one last episode of Doctor Who. Who can complain though? I’m spending my last few days here surrounded by the people I love the most, doing the things I love the most. It almost makes it hurt less.

Billy got me this gorgeous necklace a week ago. A little porcelain tardis with endless curlicues of silver wire. It travels in space. And oh, did I mention that it travels in time too?

I came across this line in a bit of writing, "It made sense for him to love her. After all, they fit together and she already knew how to use a fire extinguisher." What a gorgeous idea. It makes me want to love someone for the worst reasons, to need them for the things that should matter least.

I’d say that that’s not the way that I love, but I’m not certain that it would be the truth. I’ve loved a lot less than I like to think I have, and it’s hard trying to draw comparisons from such a small sample. Unfortunately, I love Billy for the best of reasons. I’ll try not to hold it against him, though. 

I read a short story about the slow progression towards insanity, and i had the worst time getting through it. Like any story about psychosis that are narrated by the insane, you really ought not trust the voice of the speaker. It’s hard not to, though. It’s very hard not to sympathize with their feelings and it creates an awful internal conflict in the reader (probably the desired affect, but still very disorienting). I’ve finished it and I feel somewhat off-kilter. Thank god for psychoactive medications, god only knows how I’d be faring without them.

And for the record, I’m terrified of going to law school. I’ve built up all this momentum, 8 years now of one goal, one end point, a learning process so altering I can hardly imagine my life afterward. I’m terrified that I’ll be lazy, that I’ll be forgetful. I’m even more scared that I just won’t be smart enough. I can brush off failure that could have been avoided with more hard work. I cannot come to terms with the possibility that no matter how hard I try there’s something I couldn’t succeed at. That’s probably conceited of me. All well.

I guess what I’m really trying to say here, is I used to have this shirt from Threadless called Consumable. It had a picture of a box of apple juice with a post it note on it that had a drawing of an angry face, and a little speech bubble that said "Rawr!" I would like that shirt back.

Let’s see how far we’ve come

It’s been a while. Although I’m half tempted to pick up the flippant tone and throw an off-handed joke to diffuse the distance between this blog and my present life, I’ll refrain. Really, writing would have been impossible in the prior months. I can’t explain to you the nature of that impossibility, but I know as much as to say that it has not been the time to live life under a microscope.

So what draws me back? Peer pressure. The eloquent words of the girls with whom I fill my life. Boredom. Angst. It doesn’t matter, one way or another I needed to write, and here I am.

I have little interest in rehashing the nitty gritty of my daily life for the last few months. Suffice it to say that I, as always, find it impossible to be satisfied no matter how much spite I throw into the world or how much I change. As such, nothing has changed since the last I was here.

The interesting thing about writing in this wordpress is that there is a rundown at the top of the page of all of my incomplete posts. These were discarded for many reasons. Poems and short stories that went nowhere. Discussions of Billy that were too whiny. Daily details too dull. It’s a little odd to be forcecd to consider the failures of your work everytime you create anew. Then again, it makes hitting the “publish” button a little more satisfying.

In my life I often apologize for things that I am not at all sorry for such that I preempt the need to apologize genuinely in the case of offense. It’s a weak argumentative tactic. I do not, though, apologize genuinely even when I know it is most necessary. Am I at fault? Only partially. But if neither of us tries to rectify it neither of us ever will.

When couples around me break up I find myself deeply shaken, even now. Sometimes I forget that endings are inevitable. Mostly I try not to remember. I was up sleepless all night remembering the hollow feeling in my stomach I had for months after the last time he left. I can imagine going through it again, but I can’t imagine the way our recent happiness would intensify that pain. Even the mouse eventually learns the way through the maze because of the electric shocks. History tells me this can only end in pain, and yet here I go anyway.

I vow from here on out not to turn my favorite songs into ringtones or burlesque numbers. It only strips them of the meaning. That said, I’ve been listening to “Come on, Petunia” on repeat for the last god knows how long. The Blow saved my life.

from Casey Howard
to letters amandapalmer.net
date Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 8:05 PM
subject I wish I was cool like Ben Folds so that this would be more than just another fan letter
mailed-by gmail.com

Unfortunately, I am not awesome like Ben Folds, but I am a huge fan. I’ve got a massive migraine right now and am staying home from a job that I badly need to be at to pay my bills. The only thing that is making me feel better is “Runs in the Family” over and over and over again. It’s like you’re describing my life in that song (god how many people tell you that?). My depression and random inexplicable illnesses and throwing myself at any boy for the longest time in the absence of a general wellness. But everyone said I was fine.
When my father found out my little sister was cutting herself, he told her her life was a fucking Disney Land. And in a way it was. An overpriced distraction full of selfishness and soulless products. Everyone in masks. Everyone else the center of the show– but you can pretend to be famous if you buy the right things.
I just sent your booking agent a letter begging him to schedule you for a show in Oklahoma. That’s where I’m at right now. I go to college here, learning women’s studies in the least likely place to learn it. I also dance in a burlesque troupe here. I also am putting on a fetish ball. Obviously, I’m not from here. Usually I feel like I’m not from anywhere. Las Vegas NV is where I spent most of my life and it’s a terrible place to be from. No soul.
Anyway, in my burlesque troupe I did a performance of “Runs in the Family” just a few days after your CD came out. I made this ridiculous tattered tutu with scraps of cherry and black and white stripe fabric and paired it with these harlequin print stockings, a red and white corset, and a pair of black and white pasties. When people come out to these shows they expect to have a good time, but we’re so strange they’ve learned to expect the unexpected. Never in their wildest dreams, though, do I imagine that they expected me to come out and bare my soul (and chest) to them. To expose myself to them with a confused expression of horror, to twist my body as if I did not control it. To put it in the words of one of my audience members, “That’s not sexy.” But it was sex. The way I experienced it in my youth.
No one clapped when I left the stage.
I’d like to say that I’m glad that I made them double-back on their understanding of sexuality, that I didn’t need their applause… but when one of the other girls went up and shook it fierce and everyone screamed and yelled, I wanted to be her so badly. I was back to the point of fucking anyone that came along if it meant that I could have a standing ovation. That someone might love me.
It must be impossible for you to sing these songs every night, all of that hopelessness and pain again and again and again…
You have written the theme songs of my life. Half Jack. Delilah. Truce. Runs in the Family. Missed Me. Thank you so much for giving me that, for letting me share that with a stunned audience.
Casey

I don’t like to write anymore. I know that this is strange and completely out of canon for me, but writing just makes me unhappy. How much misery have I recorded in the last hundred or so posts on this website? How much of my soul have a bared to a cavernous spectatorship that will not comfort me?
When I write poetry I have to allow a mania to overtake me. I become obsessed with words, repeating little snippets of lines over and over again, pacing and humming and crying all over a few little words. I do not want to do that anymore. When I write in my journal, my feelings of anger and disgust are only amplified. I write only to be reminded that I am alone in this. That there is no one for me to speak to.
Really, though, that isn’t the case. Really everyone understands, and if I’d just set down my 5-dollar words for a minute I’d see that. Really my emotions are basic and human and universal. Really my loneliness is a wall of pseudo-intellectualism I’ve built around myself.
So I don’t really do it anymore. I don’t need the anxiety.
But I came here to say this anyway.
Everything I thought I knew about my world has changed.
All of the most stable couples have broken up. I have been watching my friend surge and rumble with the changes of growth that are, after all, inevitable. I have watched this tear apart the group that was built painstakingly.
All of the kids that I thought of as the “sketchiest” have changed their ways. The death of a friend and teammate has become a catalyst for a more-legal style of living.
Everyone is learning that they are not immortal. That life is not permanent. Things change.
I’m watching it happen and it’s changing me too. My belief in eternity is just one more part of an innocence that I won’t get back.
And so instead I listen to music that reminds me of the-time-back-when, the-time-before. I have a playlist for a time that I’ve come to understand and I live in a confusing place where nothing is certain. Nothing at all is certain.
Here, here I used to say “except that I love him.” I would imagine that my love is the only stable thing in the world, but I know better now. Things will inevitably change. Perhaps we’ll grow apart. Perhaps we’ll grow together. But our love will not remain the same love one way or another.

Well. I never said my love life made any sense. The run down is as such; I’m still in love with Billy. Big surprise, right? In spite of how difficult it is/was for me to let go of Ryan, I feel like I have work with Billy still to finish.

I know that there isn’t much I can do to convince anyone that this is a good idea, but if it’s a mistake it’s my mistake to make, and if it’s right then I’ll try to be pleasant and not rub it in your face. Really, I’m happier now than I’ve been in ages. I’m making good decisions that really make me feel overwhelmingly confident in my sense of self.

Love is a many splendoured thing.

I experience the absence
Like the rotation of the moon
for the tides,
as muscles work together,
one contracts and one expands,
I find that to be pulled at all
I must be pulled both ways.

I experience the absence
As a burning pit
Below my lungs–
A lurching disgust.
My flesh rejects the past.

Gone and yet here.
Loved and yet hated.
I experience the absence
Through cold panes of glass
On quiet sleepless nights.

I experience the absence
As the sobs after a nightmare
Not tolerated to remember,
Not able to forget.

1. Honors perspectives courses
2. Working on debate
3. Sucking at guitar hero
4. Worrying about money
5. Caring what other people think
6. Settling into medication
7. Trying to deal with problems without professional help
8. Sending text messages in latin
9. Keeping a boy/girlfriend
10. Working at La Luna
11. Having to miss dance
12. Drama
13. Hating my body
14. Wanting to change for others
15. Stupid fights among friends
16. Having to learn to sleep alone
17. Sexual addiction
18. Being unartistic
19. Being afraid of the LSAT
20. Boys being cruel to my friends
21. Being afraid of substances
22. Being afraid to let go
23. Regretting
24. Looking back
25. Being unselfish when I should have been selfish
26. Being forgiven when I should have been merciless
27. Being restrained when I should have been wild
28. Being cruel
29. Being dishonest
30. Compromising too often
31. 12 months of the Bush administration
32. Fall semester
33. Giving up too early
34. Holding on to people who want to go
35. Forgetting to write Sara
36. Forgetting to tell Lindsay how beautiful she is
37. Forgetting to tell Scott how much I appreciate him
38. Forgetting to tell Seth how great he is
39. Forgettin to tell mikale how amazing of a friend she is
40. A time before The Blow
41. Missing Leila’s shows
42. Missing concerts that I wanted to see
43. Not travelling
44. Needing someone else to complete me
45. Apologizing for being different
46. Trying too hard
47. Not reading enough
48. Not dancing enough
49. Not writing enough
50. Not creating enough