je veux vivre

words via luxerubbish

[luxerubbishwrites]

something something about fingerprints in glue. i peel you off like a flaky layer that was never supposed to be there, save for cases of creation. i made something new and in the process you stuck to me, seeping into every crevice, less like a parasite and more like a clone, a reflection better looking than i am, a mirror with a tinge of rose. if i can shed you clean (and i’ve tried) i’d be complete again, no dangling intruder threatening my skin, no separate voice in my head, no silly, salty outside heart - a bloodflow that’s not my own and never can be. the project was a success, a museum-worthy collage of our faces and our faces and our faces touching, stuck together in symmetry, a universe with two dimensions. but the residue is drying up, and everyone has smiled. it’s lovely, i think they thought, but no masterpiece.

[luxerubbishwrites]

notes on a ghost

imagine these as mental post-its, notes on a ghost 

that kind of looks like me

-got drunk in the basement library, walked in winter to avenue d, sat, empty, somewhere satan-themed...I can never remember getting home

-met a stranger on the subway, said I’d find her later. we stole a ladder from the hostel, saw chinatown from the stars...or was it vice versa

-kissed a friend of a friend on some fire escape, still jealous about a story of love in a loft...once this happened and the guy was from texas. once this happened and the guy wouldn’t let me leave

-danced with no one on a tar rooftop, skipping over cockroaches and other lovers...across the river there were sparks in the sky, someone laughed, someone screamed

-took pills in a foreign apartment’s bathroom, hiding from someone with no face, no name, just hair...and a little blood from falling, trying to touch me while i ran

-flipped cards on a bed with a girl with blue hair, three of cups we said, and my cup runneth over...i always wanted him to look at me but he was never there

-licked salt from a wound, a little cat scratch sans fever, when we opened the windows it seemed like more smoke was coming in, and no one was leaving...i probably said “there must be a german word for this feeling”

[luxerubbishwrites]

for a writer, i think, i’ve spent an inordinate amount of my life and most of my brain power distracted by numbers. like that one meme. calculations in midair. what plus what equals what.

first it was the calories, and their negations. the sweat, the vomit, all that girly stuff. you know.

then it was the test scores. the percentages. how many people get in? the probabilities. this is all i’ve ever wanted.

then it was the lovers. how many until i’m a slut, do you think? maybe i’ll stay with you forever.

then it was the strangers. do they “like” me? do they really like me? i want to collect them all in a jar. 

then it was the money. this month, next month, then the year after that. maybe i should just have a threesome with the old couple for a thousand bucks.

[luxerubbishwrites]

i put a flower in my wound, i sent them to myself, i plucked out a few, i said they were from you. 

[luxerubbishwrites]

i write poems in my head when i think of you; that time on water street that time you kissed my bleeding feet how everybody’s happy and no one is free but maybe that’s just a lie i tell myself.

remember when we walked those 80 blocks under neon signs that lied, they weren’t open at night and everything smelled like the food we couldn’t eat i didn’t tell anyone i was with you.

what did i want but to be your holy figure a half of myself some purity unreal who couldn’t feel every time you got further and further  away. i never asked you to stay and i’m proud of it. 

but things were always frantic in that empty way that children feel, just because it’s new. we climbed a hill and got nowhere it was beautiful, it was concrete.

i fell asleep on your birthday when you lied, again, and i awoke to a hole in my shirt i must’ve cut, or burned. I circled words in books you could’ve learned. you never did.

and to wonder why i always smiled is a bore, for you knew nothing of the secrets we both thought you did but we were young and everything, back then was yet to be discovered.

[luxerubbishwrites]

there was a point 

before the bough broke

when every black hooded 

creature stayed 

balanced above me and didn’t

look down

but I knew 

they were there

and one day

I just found myself among them

everything had fallen

into some pile of shadow 

and we were swimming

like some scene out of Dante

screaming soundlessly

never sleeping

there was a point

when I slipped on a hood

myself

simply 

to stay afloat

[luxerubbishwrites]

affirmations for 25: 

talk into pillow more

talk into deaf ears less

make less important impressions on unimportant people

make more love to less important people

make important people love me more

take words and actions for what they are

take less notice of looks that remain silent and breaths that got caught in throats

scratch name into temporary surfaces

accept that time washes away most things

speak of things less fearfully

speak of things less ugly

speak of things yet to come

never repeat old stories or mistakes

wash face more

peel off dead skin

feed everything you miss 

to the birds

[luxerubbishwrites]

if i could powder up the feeling of his two hands on my face i’d snort it up, rub it on my gums, make sure everything is laced

i’d put it in my coffee, mix it in my tea, have forever this crystallized moment where he still wanted me.

[luxerubbishwrites]

how many times do you have to play the same song over and over until you get its meaning, until you consume it and it becomes like second nature? until every pause and breath and split second silence becomes as much the sound as the deafening cacophony? i think the same goes for life. i think the same goes for people.

[luxerubbishwrites]

When I’m coming down, from anything, and I have pretty bad comedowns, during all that shaky, mind-numbing, eye-rolling sadness, I can only listen to songs by ethereal women on repeat. Think Sia, Florence, Tori Amos. On repeat for hours while I look at screens and try to work or try watch them in some splendor, dancing in dreamy videos, in silent, but pacing, admiration. What do I think when I’m doing this? That these women are like me? That I can be like them, in that grandiose, all-feeling albeit un-caring, glory? A little box pops up - “Let people answer this” it is asking. I don’t think I like people answering my questions anymore. 

I like finding videos of myself unaware, doing mundane things.When my head is tilted the right way, I think it is sublime. What is the sublime? Don’t answer that.

[luxerubbishwrites]

I miss everybody / the pill bottles have been switched / where is my wine / I'll settle for weed

[luxerubbishwrites]

on silence and writing and writing in silence

How can you not write or think or feel (some) intense weight/wait in just silence, with maybe some buzz from an old air conditioner in the background? If you can’t hear yourself typing I don’t think it’s real. Anything can inspire you, of course, but if you are looking to gut the insides and perhaps poke around some intestines, extra layers of skin skin skin just won’t cut it. Shut up for a second. Stand freezing on some dark street at a time when it shouldn’t be as quiet as it is, but it is, and nothing is happening and no one is there. It’s then that you get the punch in the chest from a thought you maybe had once before with someone else with music playing, with a movie on, with a whole croak of people across the room pouring drinks and making introductions. So stand there, you know? It is fucking cold and you are cold and your hands are so numb you can’t even check your phone for directions or plans or whatever and just let it swallow you and spit you, right into some puddle of yourself. Those are your real thoughts, unencumbered. Why scratch the surface when you can stab the meat?

[luxerubbishwrites]

I don’t think anybody cares when you’re smoking at your desk so long as your words or ideas are as brooding and unrelatable as possible. They don’t care if you wash your hair or bite your tongue or bite your nails or look aware so long as you are not boring. And in a way, it’s freeing, but it takes too much to always say the saddest thing or most uncomfortable thing or... what would happen if you smiled at the party, the wine had a twine around it, and when you flashed your teeth and crossed your arms and crossed your legs, you settled into agreeable silence? Nothing would endure. Now that’s a little magic. 

[luxerubbishwrites]

To our left was a stack of books in a language I’ve never seen before. What does Turkish look like? I don’t know. Romanian? It doesn’t matter. “You don’t get it,” I’m saying. Cigarette moment. Exhale dramatically. “You’ve never been ‘fucked over.’ None of us have. We’re all just on some receiving end of human interaction. When you don’t feel like, into someone, are you actively thinking I am fucking them over? No, of course not. You’re just being honest. Everything gets easier when you learn to love the honesty of rejection.” 

She didn’t care to understand. She was sad for a reason we weren’t talking about or could talk about, even if either of us knew what it was. She picked up a book at the top of the stack and started flipping through it, pausing for half-seconds on pages featuring grainy photos of some woman with a tight, high bun. She got older as the pages progressed. “Who is that?” I was getting bored. I looked around; small windows too high up to wash, dusty rugs too old to wash, and, inexplicably, a broom in the corner. 

“She was a dancer. And a rebel fighter during the war. And a mother, a lover. My father used to tell me she was some distant relative, but now I think I don’t believe him. She was my princess story when I was little. Her life was like a bloody fairytale. She’s so beautiful. Whenever I’m sad I just flip open a page and read a few lines. But what I really do is stare into her eyes at whatever age she is that I am. When I was 6, I looked at her 6-year-old portrait. When I was 12, when I was 17. Here she is at 25. She looks so calm. She looks like she knows I’m watching and asking her for answers. Somehow she always gives them to me.”  

[luxerubbishwrites]

"Employees must accept then deny their own existence before returning to work."- mgmt

[luxerubbishwrites]

It's hard for me to come to terms with the fact that I must operate within the physical realm. I am not a creative, I think, though I sometimes pretend to be. I still have hands and ankle aches even in the heels I justified as "ethereal" when buying. I still have bills to pay and money to steal. This is all a one way track to death. And the train is not glamorous. Sure, there might be a bar cart here, but how can you blame those who jump off the ride at a particularly scenic bridge-crossing. It's so beautiful there, and the destination we're heading towards is really just some muddy hollow in the ground. I don't know. I just never asked to buy this ticket.

[luxerubbishwrites]

i’m sorry i’m not one of those people who will be impressed by the stars.