Llanto

(Weeping)

Siempre creamos o destruimos . Nunca podemos tener.
(We're always creating or destroying. We can never have.)


"Porque las estripes condenadas a cien años de soledad no tenían una segunda oportunidad sobre la tierra."
(Because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth.)
-Gabriel García Marquez, 100 años de soledad

Excerpts from a "Dear John" letter sent in June

...There are few people in this world when you look into their eyes, you see something looking back at you. You were one of those people...

...I often think back on our time together with fondess, remembering tiny moments like sound clippings of the world's best song, phrases that would make even the toughest critic choke up...

(...the time we climbed up on your roof and decided to watch the sun rise. We climbed the stairs, arms awkwardly full of blankets and pillows, you brought a bottle of that sangria we made the night before. And how we fell asleep, hand in hand before the first pink rays of light bled above the rocky skyline, baptized by dawns first kiss....)

...I don't know if they ever really happened. I want so badly to believe in the truth of my memory. There's a famous graffiti artist in New York City called De La Vega who is known for writing little phrases in obscure places that make you stop and think. One of these phrases is: A man stuck between two women will end up with neither. This is where we are now. That is what you have become...

...You lied and now I don't even know what to believe, or what to make of our time together. All those moments burned into my memory with smoldering ink, you say they were real, but I don't know if I can believe you. Perhaps I created them all...

(...We drove to the edge of the world and you got out of the car without saying a word and walked to the cliff and sat and stared at the water. And after what seemed like an eternity I gathered enough courage to follow you.And I asked you what you were thinking about, and you said nothing. everything. nothing at all... )

...And so we're back to the question that I constantly asked you and you apparently never answered truthfully: What were you thinking? What were you thinking when you met me? When you kissed me and convinced me you were different? When you looked at me that way? What were you thinking?...

(...We took a roadtrip across the country because we couldn't afford the next month's rent. You took pictures of the landscape with your camera while you were driving and I was afraid we were going to crash. And how you made me pull into that random gas station because even though we were in the middle of nowhere, you wanted to have a picture of the windmills on the hill in front of us, and that gas station had the perfect angle. You said the world was too beautiful to forget...)

...I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I fell for someone who wasn't mine, who could never be rightfully mine. I think I'm ok with that. We were just a girl and a boy whose lives intersected for a brief moment. I only wish I could figure out which part of that moment was real, which part you made up and which part I wanted to believe so badly to be true...

...You don't owe me anything. Don't say that you're hurt too. Be happy with what you've given yourself. I hope you're happy with who you are, where you are in your life, and everything you have. Be happy with what you've got, it's all you've got.

-J

A Few Figs from Thistles (and other thoughts)

First Fig

My candle burns at both ends
it will not last the night
But Ah my foes
and O my friends,
it gives a lovely light.


Second Fig

Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand

-Edna St. Vincent Millay-

The concept of impermanence has been so blatant in my life recently. According to Christianity, God created the world in seven days. I'm not sure if i believe that. Creation is still happening. It happens every moment: every moment the world is simultaneously being destroyed and created. Every new second in time is an act of simultaneous destruction and creation. She is still creating it, right now. and destroying it, right now.

I've been trying this new thing, of just taking people and things for what they are and who they are without holding them to expectations. I find that for whatever reason, I just tend to expect a lot from people, and I'm almost always disappointed. Maybe instead of engaging in some kind of holy-grail search of the person who will meet my expectations, I should change my expectations: they should just be what they are and do what they do. This also ties into comparison. We expect behaviors from others because we compare them to previous encounters in our lives. We expect that a man acts a certain way on a first date. We expect girlfriends and boyfriends to react to us and our ideosyncracies the same way previous significant others have reacted to them. People are both viciously cruel and amazingly beautiful. And yeah, sure, this is not going to stop people from hurting me, or even me from hurting others, but it might help deal with disappointment. Because if you expect nothing, you can never really be disappointed.

Life is just way too fragile to weigh it down with such toxicity and negativity.

gravitate

We pulled into a gas station, and he got out with a little smile. The night was unusually warm and the air thick with the impending fall showers. He began fueling the car, and i saw the reflection of my face in the window illuminated by the green clock, which read the wrong time. It took me a moment to recognize the eyes of the person in the reflection. I wondered how long it's been since I've grown up. He smiled at me through the window and got back into the car. As he opened the door I heard Billy Joel playing on the gas station radio: "I want you just the way you are". As he climbed into the seat next to me, his hand brushed mine. We smiled at each other shyly and after a moment he started the car.
"do you realize how long we've known eachother?"
"Seven years or something like that"
"I wish I had gotten to know you better in the beginning"
"I think we knew more about each other then than we thought."
We drive home listening to a country radio station, giggling periodically at the silly awkwardness of a high school romance rekindled.

This semester

needs to end. Now. I wish I could crumble up and start all over. If only you knew what i've gone through in the past six months, the past six weeks, even the past six days. It's incredible how little we know about each other and yet we can still be so cruel. We assume everyone's fine, because everyone looks fine, and we're awful to eachother because we think that no one understands how things really are. We think we are the only ones who have problems. I think sometimes the cruelty comes from this lack of understanding, that I, you, we are made of skin and bone, we can break, get sick, die. It's scary. I'm scared and I'm not afraid to admit it.

Dream

It's incredibly hot, the kind of heat that makes you want to bust out of whatever room you're in, doing whatever mundane task, and run through the streets barefoot and in a ripped t-shirt and shorts, smiling and not caring, just like when you were a little kid. The kind of heat that makes you want to laugh and shout and tell someone that they're beautiful, just to see them blush. And you don't know whether to laugh or cry because you're just so damn happy to be alive. The sky is an incredible blue, more vibrant than any blue I've ever seen, with streaks of white light clouds that burn your eyes when you look at them, but you look at them anyway. I'm running down cobblestone roads, laughing silently at a joke that I can't remember and there's a gypsy playing the violin on the corner. He's playing the Romani song, just the same 12 bars over and over again, and i want to tell him that if he holds the bow differently -like this- he'll get a better tone, but I don't want to offend him. I run past the open air spice market and wave at the old couple selling bright orange curry out of a burlap sack and the little girl holding a sprig of rosemary (one day she'll claim to read fortunes.) I am running westward, into the setting sun, which dyes the corners of the picturesque skyline with watery purple pink and red, as if the mountains are bleeding. Someone grabs my arm. He looks at me with dark brown eyes and asks me where I'm going. I tell him that I am going home because it's going to get cold. He laughs and shakes his head, and points a finger at my abdomen. I then realize that the heat is coming from within me. I tell him I have to leave. He won't let go of my arm, and instead pulls me close to him. A dog runs past us, barking. We are glowing together, heat radiating from our bodies and he whispers to me in a different voice, real and clear and ringing: "No te vayas".
I wake up.

To the girl who takes her top off in the name of feminism

I read this poem at Women Who Rock, (and won).


It was if the universe had brought us together
There, in that tiny bathroom, the walls caked with carvings of
Initials and greek letters
The floor sticky with beer and some mysterious substance
We stand.
Shoulder to shoulder.
Next to each other and look in the mirror
But not at eachother
Or rather
She’s looking through me
Or through the mirror at me
But only when it seems
I am not looking back at her.
But I can see right through
And I realize
I’ve seen her there before
She’s the girl who can fill the floor
And dance on the bar every Friday ngiht
Singing “Pour some sugar on me!!!!”
In the name of what?
No not love
Not love for this girl
Not love but feminism?
Feminism

I’m just going to put this out there
There is nothing feminist about taking off your top
We burnt bras back in the day
To say something about sexual slavery
And to take a stab at the fascist fasion institution
But there’s a huge difference between that
And “feminist prostitution”

“hey”
she says to me
“I heard about your nice guy, did he call”
And I’m all “nope”
And she wishes me the best of luck
And saunters into the hall swinging her hips in that tiny skirt
And walks right over to non other
Than Mr. Nice guy
And proceeds to take off her shirt.

It’s not fair that nice guys say
Girls always go for the jackasses
Because honestly
Given the opportunity
They will go blindly
Into the arms of the first permiscuous lady
That flashes them a smile.

And I don’t want to hate on my liberated sisters
But I thought sexual liberation was about
Our own exploration
And not about being the subject
Of some man’s objectification.

And God I’m standing there
Horrified
Because she’s everything I refuse to be
She’s blue eyed and blonde haired
Is that what makes her better tham me?
She’s every man’s fantasy
All gussied up like
Pre-federline brittney
And if that’s what he’s looking for
Then I guess he’s not the guy for me
And maybe I’m not what he’s looking for
Skinny freckled girl nextdoor
Standing tall and proud at 5’4
Ok 5’3
Fine I’m 5’2 and a half
But believe it or not, I can’t leave this in my past

And I’m not mad but I would do anything
To pull that girl off the bar
Grab herby the shoulders and say
Hey you I don’t buy it, you’re not a star,
I know you’re searching for acceptance in a sea of drunken faces
But you’re looking for love in all the wrong places
I know deep down you’re searching for a love that’s true
But that kind of love, baby girls gotta come from within you

And I’m sick of my heels sticking to the floor
And clearly that guys not the one I’ve been looking for
So I get up and get the hell out that door
Byebye nice guy.

It’s true what they say about nice guys
But I think they left out a big part
Yeah, nice guys may finish last
But nice girls, man,
We never even get to start.

I think i did this in middle school once too...

he said ani, you've gotten tough
'cause my tone was curt
yeah, and when I'm approached in a dark alley
I don't lift my skirt
in this city
self-preservation
is a full time occupation
I'm determined
to survive on this shore
you know I don't
avert my eyes anymore
in a man's world
I am a woman by birth
and after nineteen times around I have found
they will stop at nothing once they know what you are worth
talk to me now
I played the powerless
in too many dark scenes
and I was blessed with a birth and a death
and I guess I just want some say in between
don't you understand
in the day to day
and the face to face
I have to act
just as strong as I can
just to preserve a place
where I can be who I am
so if you still know how
talk to me now
-----

Do not rob me of my voice, your ignorance of my presence is just your choice. i refuse to be submitted into silence just because of your immature defiance, you don't know anything about me, so why shoud i be forced choose my words carefully, if you're looking for some incrimating artifacts you might as well just go back to your facebook stalking of someone else. And if this little paragraph seems unnaturally mean you should look for the deeper feeling in the spaces inbetween the letters you're reading, and i think taking my words at face value is always a risk because i promise you there's something your bound to miss. i have done nothing to you and so my conscience is clear, stop chalking it up to my emotions and not your own fear. I'm not mad but don't think i'll give you any unprecidented kindess, and frankly i'm appalled at your blindess to think that i might actually sacrifce where i live for you, i'm not going to do you any favors: i'll go wherever i choose.

By the way, i'm glad you liked the other poem. maybe next time you can talk to me about it before jumping to conclusions.

what's the deal anyway?

I had someone ask me
"what the fuck makes you a feminist anyway?"
She said it with such distain in her eyes
that i knew immediately she was refering to the curve of my thighs
and the fact that i could pick up a lot of guys
If i wanted to
(but i don't)

So here's an answer for my sister
who doesn't consider herself such
I'm a fucking feminist because i don't shave my legs much
And I don't give a shit if i offend some guy with my hair
because i will find a man who loves me for my qualities
rather than the fact that i look like a model on tv

And i'd rather have a brain between my ears
than look perfect like Britney Spears
And follow all the latest fashion trends
Just so he can show me off to his friends
Like a fucking trophy.

Well you can go fuck yourself with your facist beauty industry
I'm gonna find someone who loves me
for something more than just what you can see.

I refuse to be embarrased the morning after
unless you hold men to the exact same standards
and give them hell after they bring home someone new
Because if i'm giving explanations, you should too.

I'm a feminist because I want to be able
to walk myself home late at night
And i don't need a guy to defend my honor
with some lame bar fight

I want to wear a short skirt
without you looking at my ass
and I want that nice guy to just go ahead
and ask.

I am so tired of looking at magazines
and finding nothing but fake beauty
in the ads in between
instead of a reflection of what we could be

I want my mother's rightful place restored in the heavens
I want my sister to be at her right hand
I want god to be both a woman and a man.

Why you gotta tell me if I'm hated
is it because you're afraid I'm right?
Why is it always so complicated
that i feel i have to explain myself day and night

I'm a feminist because I am exhausted through and through
for having to defend my reasons
for wanting some love too.