"Truth is a constantly evolving constellation" @dauza - Tumblr Blog

FOMO

Experiences are not for consumption young friend, You cannot mine time. Your dad knew this on some level when he sang "red rubber ball" at a sunset to hold it in your memory. He knew the sitting and staring at the sun needed to be tagged in your mind so you could relive the unplanned moment over and over and over again for the rest of your life whenever you heard that song or saw a red ball. So you could always have the feeling of sitting next to your Dad and feeling grateful for and embarassed by him. He knew time was for sitting in. That life was not about bucket lists But about holding as much as you can in the small moments.

#processpoetry

I will become dust.

Ground out by shade Calcified by snide Left speckled over every surface and lost. An irritating exhale, Waved out of the faces Of anyone who ever encountered me. Irritating and invisible, haunting your mucous membranes, a thin shifting layer of neglect and mediocrity felt only as source of inflammation.

#poetry #processpoetry

dauza

Reminder

Those hard days

when my brain fires twenty-year-old synapses

that dump endorphins like sugar:

“This romantic-comedy ice-cream rain,

you’ll never get it again,

never with anyone else,”

I just have to remind myself

that beyond the endorphin-sugar highs

you’re basically Bill Clinton

basically the same white man

getting away with shit

and charming the pants off the masses

as has been happening forever.

I remind myself

You are the same sweet trap my mother fell into,

the logical neural pathway of a brain shaped by patriarchy

“this is the best I could ever hope for,

worthy of the sacrifice of

dignity

sanity

stability

values

boundaries

self-esteem.

he is everything.”

I remind myself of how those things that would-be-compromised

have saved me over and over

and how you’ve only ever denied me kindness,

and I let the sweet flow pass over me

without letting it stick.

I remind myself

that you never earned those endorphins

never shown me generosity that wasn’t requested

that you took pains to remind me how precious

how valuable

your time and attention is

(as opposed to mine, which was cheap to you).

I remind myself

that you’re used to brains flooding wherever you go.

They are not triggering in response to your character or “beauty.”

You are the bell in a collective Pavlovian response,

mistaking the rote training

for earned adoration.

I remind myself these things

and move the fuck on

with my to-do list.

I don’t have time to be your afterthought

dauza

Do you think of me on Sundays

Because on Sundays While I turn my body into new positions For sleeping, reading, emailing, catching up on bad tv and philosophical research I feel glances of the tingle of you. I wake up, stretch and am shot through with your desire, Like you are sleeping with your boyfriend but thinking of me. The vibes! I half expect you to message me on Sundays. But I am in my own bed, not yours. I woke up wanting pancakes, not you. Today is the day I am taking care of myself My actual self, not me as you perceive me. On Sundays I drink green tea and eat brunchy things And sleep and read And lie on the couch I bought with my own money In the job I got for my own expertise and work Without you. So do you think of me on Sundays Or is self-love such a foreign concept to my body That it only understands it In terms of the feelings we once held at the same table The ones that disappeared that table entirely, into particles And burst us into a luminous fog? Do you think of me on Sundays or was the love I had for you so powerful that my body now understands it as the baseline For all other loves, Including the love I have for myself?

Boom:

they wish.

Canons are actually quiet, creaky pains in the ass, not the profound, deafening thunder they think they are.

Their effect has quite the resonance: ruffling pages, rippling canvases, making generations of artists chase their source.

Like trying to find a creaky floorboard, a broken fire alarm or a lost cell phone. Annoying, but effective.

Producing painfully familiar art all over, all over.

Blasts of Picasso, Shakespeare, squawks of white men heard across centuries, drowning out all other sounds. Distractions from the real sources, the whispers and rumblings of marginalized voices around the world.

The real boom comes from cracking pedestals.

#processpoetry

Do you think of me on Sundays

Because on Sundays While I turn my body into new positions For sleeping, reading, emailing, catching up on bad tv and philosophical research I feel glances of the tingle of you. I wake up, stretch and am shot through with your desire, Like you are sleeping with your boyfriend but thinking of me. The vibes! I half expect you to message me on Sundays. But I am in my own bed, not yours. I woke up wanting pancakes, not you. Today is the day I am taking care of myself My actual self, not me as you perceive me. On Sundays I drink green tea and eat brunchy things And sleep and read And lie on the couch I bought with my own money In the job I got for my own expertise and work Without you. So do you think of me on Sundays Or is self-love such a foreign concept to my body That it only understands it In terms of the feelings we once held at the same table The ones that disappeared that table entirely, into particles And burst us into a luminous fog? Do you think of me on Sundays or was the love I had for you so powerful that my body now understands it as the baseline For all other loves, Including the love I have for myself?

#processpoetry

Why I didn't marry it

When I described the emotional abuse on the organic farm I worked on in Oklahoma A friend asked incredulously "Were you dating?" Nope but I went into that farm all in Like I was gonna marry it My friends said "I'm so surprised First that you are living in Florida and also that you like it" Like it? It was my potential future, birds chirping, Until the pandemic, and the assault of oppressive laws On top of the thickest, most obtuse misogyny I had ever run aground on, daydreams dashed. When I took tea with you I put my whole self at the table The full force of my thought, vulnerability, heart. I should have known, both, that this was me wanting to marry you and that you would prove to be unworthy of that desire. I have never been married. Not officially. But the worthy partner is a rare one and there are systemic blocks to healthy relationships. I can handle farms, tea, oppression: but not being divorced from myself.

#processpoetry #poem

acastersource

James Acaster: Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999

Bonus:

overkillerwhale

[Image Description: Eight gifs of James Acaster from Cold Lasagne hate Myself 1999 that are captioned, “They say whatever they like, edgy comedians. Nobody tells them what they can and can’t say. They walk onstage, top of their specials sometimes, and do ten solid minutes just slagging off transgender people. Straight out the gate, just making fun of transgender people. And if people on the internet get upset about it, the comedian is always like… “Bad luck! That’s my job. I’m a stand-up comedian. I’m meant to challenge people. If you don’t like being challenged, don’t watch my shows. What’s the matter guys? Too challenging for you?” Oh yeah, ‘cause you know who’s been long overdue a challenge? The trans community. They’ve had their guard down for too long if you ask me. They’ll be checking their privilege on the way home now thanks to you, you brave little cis boy!”

The two bonus gifs are captioned, “I used to name one of the comedians who that routine was about, but it always got really awkward in the room. Because it’s 2019 and most people are still more than happy to laugh at transgender people. Not as comfortable laughing at Ricky Gervais yet.” /End Image Description.]

dearmyblank

Dear D,

It’s been 3 years. I’ve heard and read that the passionate stage of love expires after 3 years. It’s the basic emotional deadline most folks have to establish a long-term investment in each other before things become less exciting, more everyday.

I’ve basically been riding out this high, waiting you to establish that investment in your partner. It looks like it worked, and that you two are committed, and happy. Now I’m just hoping my own love fades out soon. Because this has been the hardest emotional labor I have ever done in my life, and I would like to get back to focusing everything in my emotional landscape that doesn’t include you.

I would like to forget about you, and hear in 10 years that you are still wonderfully happy. I’m well on my way. I don’t think about you as often, or as fondly, as I once did. But I would prefer not to be thinking about you at all.

When you would occasionally turn your gaze toward me, my brain and body would explode (in cliched tingles, no less, like “nothing I had ever felt before”). But part of me saw your gaze through your partners’ eyes. I put myself in their position. I saw a young person who was willing to do anything to keep you, to make you happy. I saw a young person who was jealous and possessive and trying to act like they weren’t.

I knew those things weren’t going to go away, regardless of whatever relationship structure you two choose to have. I also knew my own relationship to you was fraught and complicated enough without inciting a struggle with someone else. I’ve got my baggage. If I were your partner, I would never share you with anyone else. I would demand an equal partnership, both personally and professionally. I would be terrified of you looking at someone else the way I felt you looking at … me.

I tried to channel my energy into an strictly professional relationship, but that didn’t work. It turns out, professional boundaries are incredibly important to me. I had too much on the line. So I’ve had to withdraw. It was a slow, years-long retreat, until finally I had to block you on all social media. It hurts too much.

I’ve been telling myself, over and over and over again– if you truly love someone, you do what’s best for them, even if it means not being with you. And the thing is, I love you. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone in my entire life. Loving you has given me a way of understanding how to be in the world. And even though you’re not the perfect human I once thought you were, I still love you. I curse myself for loving you (you can be such an asshole) but it doesn’t make it stop. Loving you has been nothing but a series of cliches about being it love. It really is true, that you can’t choose who you love. I’ve been trying to pick someone, anyone else, for 3 years.

If I thought you were willing to fight for me– if I thought there were any chance you would return my love, commit to me– I would embrace these feelings and reach out to you. But it’s very clear there’s no chance that’s happening. Besides everything else that’s at stake, I don’t think you’ve ever had to fight for love in your life. There are just too many people lining up to give it to you. I can’t compete with that.

It’s highly likely that no one will ever learn this side of the story. It’s too complicated, and I’ve been telling, well, a different story. Not a false one. Just one that doesn’t involve me being in love with you. One that positions me as angry and judgemental, bridge-burning. Because that is somehow more professionally tolerable to me than the agonizing, self-sacrificing love I’ve been consumed by for 3 years.

I’m hoping I only have a few more weeks or months before this fades. I really don’t think I can take any more than that. I want you to be happy. But I want a happy future for myself as well. And that means removing myself from an impossible situation, and moving on.

All my love (all of it, please just take it away),

M.

I am a fire break

I am the part of the landscape that you must starve, scorch, isolate or separate

to quelch throes of destruction built on generations of momentum.

I am the part of the forest that is sparse and open

because it is here to absorb fury.

I am a wall and a gap of care,

a manager of violence,

a peace built on a back held up to flames.

Matted and drawn close to the earth

for the protection of the ones I love

#poetry #processpoetry

Dear D, I cut myself off from you because I was in love with you. You noticed, maybe not that I was gone, but that I had been in love. I understood, as soon as I knew I was in love, that it was...

Because it sticks to a short list of favored canonical writers, the gay male archive binds itself to a narrow range of affective responses. And so fatigue, ennui, boredom, indifference, ironic distancing, indirectness, arch dismissal, insincerity, and camp make up what Ann Cvetkovich (2003) has called “an archive of feelings” associated with this form of antisocial theory. But this canon occludes another suite of affectivities associated with another kind o! politics and a different form of negativity. In this other archive we can identify, for example, rage, rudeness, anger, spite, impatience, intensity, mania, sincerity, earnestness, overinvestment, incivility, brutal honesty, and disappointment. The first archive is a camp archive, a repertoire of formalized and often formulaic responses to the banality of straight culture and the repetitiveness and unimaginativeness of heteronormativity. The second archive, however, is far more in keeping with the undisciplined kinds of responses that Leo Bersani at least seems to associate with sex and queer culture, and it is here that the promise of self- shattering, loss of mastery and meaning, unregulated speech and desire are unloosed. Dyke anger, anticolonial despair, racial rage, counterhegemonic violence, punk pugilism—these are the bleak and angry territories of the antisocial turn; these are the jagged zones within which not only self- shattering (the opposite of narcissism in a way) but other- shattering occurs. If we want to make the antisocial turn in queer theory we must be willing to turn away from the comfort zone of polite exchange in order to embrace a truly political negativity, one that promises, this time, to fail, to make a mess, to fuck shit up, to be loud, unruly, impolite, to breed resentment, to bash back, to speak up and out, to disrupt, assassinate, shock, and annihilate.

Jack Halberstam, The Queer Art of Failure

ASMR | WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? | Full Album Billie Eili...

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"Truth is a constantly evolving constellation"