sunshine

Two-faced

I love my brother.

I have an incredible amount of respect for my brother, Michael. I love him deeply. I am fortunate to have such a wonderful person in my life.

"You shouldn't settle for less than 100% of what you want [in a relationship]."
-Michael Forrest

ATTENTION!

QUARTER-LIFE CRISIS SUPPORT GROUP

ARE YOU LACKING MOTIVATION?
DO YOU CARE ABOUT ABSOLUTELY NOTHING EXCEPT SLEEPING AND EATING?
ARE YOU BROKE?
LET'S COMPLAIN TOGETHER!

MEETING PLACE: ?
TIME: NEVER (I can't get out of bed, but I'm here for you!)

Extremely Loud and Increadibly Close-- quotes

“I did not need to know if he could love me. I needed to know if he could need me.” [84]

“Just because you’re an atheist, that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t love for things to have reasons for why they are.” [13]

“I’m trying,” Mr. Goldberg said to me, as if only the two of us existed. “Trying what?” I asked, in a voice more concerned than I’d wanted, he took off his glasses again, “Trying to be.” [126]

“That is what death is like. It doesn’t matter what uniforms the soldiers are wearing. It doesn’t matter how good the weapons are. I thought if everyone could see what I saw, we would never have war anymore.” [189]

“No matter how much I feel, I’m not going to let it out. If I have to cry, I’m gonna cry on the inside. If I have to bleed, I’ll bruise. If my heart starts going crazy, I’m not gonna tell everyone in the world about it. It doesn’t help anything. It just makes everyone’s life worse….” “But if you’re burying your feelings deep inside you, you won’t really be you, will you?” [201]

“Well, what I don’t get is why do we exist? I don’t mean how, but why.” I watched the fireflies of his thoughts orbit his head. He said, “We exist because we exist.” “What the?” “We could imagine all sorts of universes unlike this one, but this is the one that happened.” [13]

“If I’d been somone else in a different world I’d've done something different, but I was myself and the world was the world, so I was silent.” [30]

the Tree

the Tree
I walk by every morning
was once thriving
its branches reached up to the sky
and graced all the creatures
who set foot upon its vegetation
until one day, I noticed its absence
cut down
by a force that's blunt
and unexplainable
confusing and unfortunate
it couldn't save itself from its fate
it couldn't grasp on to the sky
and simply refuse its demise
but something still remains
the stump is hard to look at
I behold
its sad smooth sorry surface
and the roots still linger
deep in the ground
they cling on to life
dark and deep below the surface
and I wonder
if the tree will grow back
out of spite
or conceivably because living is all it knows how to do
only to be slaughtered
once again.

i smell spring

little Chelsea
sits at a desk
with her political book
wishing there was no such thing
as politics
and cancer
because she likes to play with cigarettes
and inhale their magic wonder
when she's too anxious
to focus on anything else
and she clenches her teeth
with anticipation of warm weather
and better times.

doodlin

Their attitudes differ- Margaret Atwood

i

To understand
each other: anything
but that, & to avoid it

I will suspend my search for
germs if you will keep
your fingers off the microfilm
hidden inside my skin

ii

I approach this love
like a biologist
pulling on my rubber
gloves & white labcoat

You flee from it
like an escaped political
prisoner, and no wonder

iii

You held out your hand
I took your fingerprints

You asked for love
I gave you only descriptions

Please die I said
so I can write about it

gone

you are a phantom limb
of my body
i can't see you
but still i reach out
to feel what is no longer there
i act as if you still exist
i feel whole and empty at the same time
and your presence lingers.
your presence haunts me.

what I am studying in Feminist Theory

from bell hooks' all about love

"Throughout our lives we meet lots of people with whom we feel that special click that could take us on the path of love. But this click is not the same as a soul connection. Often, deeper bonding with another person, a soul connection, happens whether we will it to be so or not. Indeed, sometimes we are drawn toward someone without knowing why, even when we do not desire contact. Several couples I talked with who have found true love enjoyed telling the story of how one of them did not find the other at all appealing at first meeting even though they felt mysteriously joined to that individual. In all cases where individuals felt that they had known true love, everyone testified that the bonding was not easy or simple. To many folks this seems confusing precisely because our fantasy of true love is that it will be just that-simple and easy.
Usually we imagine that true love will be intensely pleasurable and romantic, full of love and light. In truth, true love is all about work. The poet Rainer Maria Rilke wisely observed: 'Like so much else, people have also misunderstood the place of love in life, they have made it not play and pleasure because they thought that play and pleasure was more blissful than work; but there is nothing happier than work, and love, just because it is the extreme happiness, can be nothing else but work...' the essence of true love is a mutual recognition-two individuals seeing each other as they really are. We all know that the usual approach is to meet someone we like and put our best self forward, or even at times a false self, one we believe will be more appealing to the person we want to attract. When our real self appears in its entirety, when the good behavior becomes too much to maintain or the masks are taken away, disappointment comes. All too often individuals feel, after the fact- when feelings are hurt and hearts are broken-that it was a case of mistaken identity, that the loved one is a stranger. They saw what they wanted to see rather than what was really there."

conflict

your kiss
is a shallow grave

i am coming back






saul williams

there's a new man in my life

Unfortunately, he's taken.

then you put your hand on my shoulder

and in a flash you were gone
your shoes hardly on
an inaudible goodbye
stumbled out of my mouth
so typical of you
i'm glad you came by

Validation

My feelings are valid
so I don't want to cry anymore
because I can't explain to you
with concrete facts
written by scholars
or people "above" me
who are supposedly
more knowledgeable
who can supposedly
be trusted
as if you can't trust
that what I'm saying
is real and important
or valid
you easily believe them
because of some label bestowed upon their name
if why I feel this way
is so fucking confusing to you
because my name isn't written in some
book or journal
how would I ever get through to you
the only thing you need to know
is what I'm telling you
believe in me
because I'm speaking with my heart
get out of your head
shove those papers up your ass
I'm done saying sorry.
but I might still cry.

1. Live for happiness now.
2. Stay up late.
3. Wake up early.
4. Take naps.
5. Do things you think you shouldn't.
6. Have no regrets.
7. Learn from every experience.
8. Hug your friends.
9. And kiss them too.
10. Be bold.

untitled

I've tried to deny that the gray
makes me unhappy and tired
but it does
so

Perhaps I'll start running again
to remember and forget
at the same time
who I am and who I wish I was
and the fact that you're not around

but I don't know.

Maybe I'll go home for a while
to feel the only concrete love I've ever known

or perhaps
I could drive to my brother's
and dance in the flashing dark
We'll pretend we're Russian
and dance in the clouds.

I wish you understood.

I'm not expecting to come back
and be fine again
but truthfully (or selfishly in your mind)
I'm just looking to be a necessity
to someone's existence.

emilio

drawing by rachel