A Blocked Writer's Journey

My new year's resolution for 2018 is to write more. So using this blog as my motivation, I plan to try to write as often as I can, whether it's a poem or me just talking about my life. My Writing

[writer-wrong]

// demisexual // i stare at you and see nothing in your eyes as i hear all the chatter of “he’s so sexy” and “ugh, what i’d give...” coming from my friends, and i do not understand, perpetually confused as feelings of isolation creep in like a vine threatening to strangle me to death.

what the hell is wrong with me?

i can recognize beauty and wistfully sigh as i crush on people i barely know, but the thought of sex with them is enough to make me want to crawl into myself and weep because it reminds me that i am not like other people, even though i wish i was.

i think back to my only two hookups and wish that i hadn’t felt the need to conform, rebelling against my very essence, against something that i have known since i was young. but at the same time, i know that i needed to fuck up to come to terms with who i really am.

who the hell am i?

the first boy i truly fell for, deep as the darkest depths of the ocean, broke my heart. we only ever touched clothed shoulders and knees, but he turned on a light bulb that had never burned before inside of me.

holy shit, is this what normal people feel like?

BAM.

god gives life to sex.

the revelation is bittersweet, like a poisonous apple, because i now know that i am not entirely normal. i am other. i stare at my phone as my last hookup asks me if i want to meet again, and i know that i cannot say yes because i can no longer hide from myself. i am transformed, no  longer masked by  ignorance. i scroll through screens asking me, “do you want to fuck?” and all i want to do is SCREAM: what the hell is wrong with you?

what the hell is wrong with us all?

maybe i’ll never know.

[writer-wrong]

there is trauma in never having been loved by another person who had a choice to love you (so not a brother or a mother or a father or a sister) a person who lovingly traces lines across your skin, without any selfishness (with the perfect amount of tenderness and pressure) who makes you wonder, think, and ponder everyday without fail (how did you ever live a life without them it it?) who tells you that you’re beautiful, even on bad days when you can’t stop crying about something stupid (because your eyes look cute when they get puffy) or who listens to you as you ramble on about the latest article you read in the new yorker (and actually reads it when you send it to him) i can’t help but wonder, what is it like to be loved by someone who knows you and still decides to stay? there is trauma in not knowing the answer.

[writer-wrong]

loneliness is my passenger,

sitting shotgun as i drive

down the highway that is my life.

sometimes he snoozes off

and i forget that he’s there

as i roll the windows down,

and feel alive as my hair

whips around while the

music is blasting.

but then he wakes up and

suddenly i hear him whisper,

reminding me he is ever present,

even when my friends or family

members are in the backseat,

“you will always be alone,”

“nobody really understands you,”

“this will always be your reality,”

and i wonder if we’ll ever reach

his destination - or if i’ll find

someone to take his

place next to me.

maybe he’ll get off at a rest stop

and never come back.

but for now he sits besides me,

my constant passenger

through the freeway

and the back roads.

[writer-wrong]

it might be nice to find love but i couldn’t really tell you how it feels at least not romantically, i know that i love my mother and my brother and my dog and my cat  or my friends  and a really good meal, i know that i love the three freckles going down my jaw  that makes me think of a constellation, i know that i love the way the pavement smells after it downpours in the summer  or how a cool pillow feels on my face during a record breaking heat wave, but i do not know what it feels like to have my soul entangled with another as we untangle the sheets binding  us together, two mummies who  could not bear to be apart even in death.  how does it feel to be held the way  i hold onto bright memories, to be  lovingly gazed at the way i gaze  in wonder at the sky during the  first snow of the winter, or to be  kissed as powerfully as a tsunami  crashing onto shore? maybe one day out of  nowhere i’ll be struck with  the lightening bolt of  romantic love, but  for now i will pray for thunderstorms.

[twofigs]

louise glück at 11:27pm

[boykeats]

Stephen Hawking by Keaton St. James

(patreon)

[writer-wrong]

i feel so silent so sick and tired of feeling down about the things i cannot control it feels like people hide their happiness away from me in their tiny corners, scared to lose it and i of all people know how precious it is but happiness is meant to be shared, meant to uplift those around you who have been knocked down by life, time and time again, it is not a commodity for you to take control of, it is fleeting, flitting around from master to master, refusing to be locked in cages by people too timid to let it free into the world. please, won’t you share your happiness with me? lift the burdens weighing me down, take away the second guessing and just let me be here in this moment, not stuck in the past or in the uncertain future, but fully here i promise i won’t cage it, i will watch it fly in wonder, admiring its wildness, its rarity, its peace, and i will shed tears of joy as i watch it leave me when its time, soaring above, searching for the next person, who deserves its sight. oh happiness fly    fly        fly            fly                fly                    fly                       away.

[professorfangirl]

–Anne Carson, Bakkhai

[writer-wrong]

i have spent these past few weeks  ruminating on what went wrong between the two of us, wishing  you out of my memories,  repainting the image of you in my  head with delicate paint strokes.  i am scared that all my work  will be destroyed the moment  i see your face again, and that  the memories i tried to archive  will be dusted off and replayed  over and over again.  i play out all the potential  scenarios of seeing you again but i hate every single one, because nothing can erase the bridges you burned to the ground so callously.  ignoring me feels cold,  acting like nothing happened  feels cruel, and an apology  seems unlikely and confusing. you destroyed all that was  good between us and i’m  not sure anything can be done  to ever really fix that. 

[writer-wrong]

this is the year of something, the year of an old fashioned revival, cleansing like a god-fearing reawakening, a fervor, a frenzy, a frantic feeling rising up within my soul, raging  like a storm clearing through a city,  taking everything it can within its path. 

this is the year of reflection,  of taking stock of shell shocked spirit, analyzing acidic anxieties that  have flooded my senses for the past year, for the past two years, for the past decade, for my whole life, from crying “i am alive”  at birth to “why am i alive?” right now.

this is the year of emotional vulnerability,  of opening myself up like a butterfly  flying away from its chrysalis for the very first time,  ready to experience the chaotic, clamoring cacophony we call love.

this is the year of redemption,  of radical forgiveness and self-love, allowing emotional confessions  to absolve myself of the sins  of self doubt and blame, replaced with the virtues  of volition and vitality. this is the year of something more, something greater than before, this is the year where everything finally blossoms in the spring, this is the year where i will find  the things i thought i had left behind this is the year of me, of you, of everyone, through and through.

[writer-wrong]

the anatomy of a fuck boy

you pursue me, introduce me to your friends  and tell me that i’m nothing like your crazy ex,  tell me all your fears and dreams and insecurities, bitch about this girl you studied abroad with  in new zealand that you couldn’t fucking stand, and when i text you drunk one time about  my own feelings about our relationship,  you ghost me and break up with me. and three months later you’re dating  that bitch you hated from new zealand, who just happens to be a fucking model, and now you work for uber and i realize  that you’re just another finance fuck boy  who cares more about status than me. you say yes every time i ask you  to hang out with me, flirt with me,  say hi to my roommate on the bus,  put your arms around me at a bar,  and tell me you had wanted to go on a date with me instead.  then you text me at 3 am saying you don’t want a relationship but we can still hang out. when i tell you i feel  hurt you ignore me, and when i text  you two more times wondering  what the fuck is going on in your head  you tell me that we can’t even be friends  because our personalities aren’t compatible, so why the fuck did you hang out with me  in the first place? you seem caring until i ask you to treat me like a human being with feelings. i am sorry that i am too emotional for you, fuck boy. we date for three months without  making anything official, but you  spend most of your time in my apartment hanging out with my roommates and me and it  feels like a relationship. you tell me you  care about me and we have sex on the couch  because my roommate won’t leave our room and we get tipsy and laugh and kiss and cuddle, and i feel so happy. we begin to feel like a couple, and everyone is telling me that you clearly care about me. but when i ask where we are going you freak out and say you were shattered by your ex and that you promised yourself to never to commit to a relationship in college,  even though you’ve basically committed to  me for the past three months.  i tell you that is not good enough for me  because i want something more eventually. you’re just another fuck boy using your  ex as a reason not to tie yourself down. you tell me we have so much in common. you fuck me and tell me i am beautiful  but are too tired to make me orgasm and then you never talk to me again. you were always so nice to me until one day at one of your parties you kept hounding  me to hook up with you and i said no. then you stopped inviting me to your parties. “you’re just so emotional” is just code for “you’re a crazy bitch.”  why is that society has forced women to do emotional labor and fails to train men to do the same, and then punishes us  when we express our feelings like  we’ve been taught?  why must we suffer at the hands of fuck boys? i am tired of learning their anatomy.  it’s time they learned mine.

[writer-wrong]

it feels so strange to be filled with so  much hope amidst all this inner turmoil, all this stomach churning and mental gymnastics wishing away past misfortunes and past mistakes. i am trying not to blame myself for your hurtful  words, but i see emotions through other people. i can see that i scared you away, like  a storm approaching out of nowhere,  clouds descending like an ominous warning  from the gods: you must wrestle with the thing  you hate the most, other people’s feelings. and so you ran away. it is easier to call me  what is simple: crazy, clingy, just not for me,  incompatible, just like every other 21 year old girl than it is to try to understand me.  it is your choice to cast me aside like i  never mattered - like a failed experiment or  a worn out toy you no longer care for.  you can ignore me and condescend and  assume and dislike me and forget me and i will still forgive you because life is too short and precious to hold onto hate. but i will not forget  all that you did to not deserve me, for i am  worthy of love and understanding, worthy  of expressing my emotions, worthy of attention and explanation for bad behavior, and worthy of not having my time wasted by boys who  are too cowardly to express how they’re feeling. i will not let you make me feel foolish or naive,  i am strong and independent and deserving  of all the love that the world has to offer me.  you do not deserve me.

[writer-wrong]

distraction i need to focus on something  other than you other than us at the bar with your arms wrapped around my waist while you shivered because  you hate wearing coats  i need to find something else to think about  other than our talks about new york city or about my family  or about global perspectives  or your family  and your brother who is  probably settling back into  massachusetts right now, after time in orlando. i hate thinking about  your nice shoes and goofy smile  your sarcasm and your ability  to make cutting remarks  about anything and everything  i need to stop remembering  gin and tonics, you joking about being one year older,  and your fucking bird.  i can’t stop seeing you  in funny videos of birds and i deleted a link to a poster of the birds  of north america that i thought  you might like, but facebook keeps showing it to me, reminding me of you. i hate not knowing what is going on inside that fucked up head of yours, and i hated your mixed  signals, and i hate that flannel your  sister gave you that made me think  of warmth and safety and love,  and i hate that text you sent me  at three am, so casually saying  you do not want to lead me on (even though you led me on already)  and that you do not want a relationship and that you want to “hang out” and be friends, but do friends flirt the way we did? do friends wrap arms around waists and drop the word “date” in conversation? do friends sit knee to knee, arm around my shoulder talking to only each other the whole night, while my other friends look on approvingly? i hate that you’ve ignored my text about  feeling hurt by you for 96 hours,  and i hate that i am already willing to  forgive you for it, but i still need a distraction, please give me a distraction, anything at all so that i can stop thinking  about him  and about the bar  and about the couch  and about his red minivan and about everything  that made me feel  like maybe this time it would be  different.

[interactiveglobe]

This is the year that squatters evict landlords, gazing like admirals from the rail of the roofdeck or levitating hands in praise of steam in the shower; this is the year that shawled refugees deport judges who stare at the floor and their swollen feet as files are stamped with their destination; this is the year that police revolvers, stove-hot, blister the fingers of raging cops, and nightsticks splinter in their palms; this is the year that darkskinned men lynched a century ago return to sip coffee quietly with the apologizing descendants of their executioners.

This is the year that those who swim the border’s undertow and shiver in boxcars are greeted with trumpets and drums at the first railroad crossing on the other side; this is the year that the hands pulling tomatoes from the vine uproot the deed to the earth that sprouts the vine, the hands canning tomatoes are named in the will that owns the bedlam of the cannery; this is the year that the eyes stinging from the poison that purifies toilets awaken at last to the sight of a rooster-loud hillside, pilgrimage of immigrant birth; this is the year that cockroaches become extinct, that no doctor finds a roach embedded in the ear of an infant; this is the year that the food stamps of adolescent mothers are auctioned like gold doubloons, and no coin is given to buy machetes for the next bouquet of severed heads in coffee plantation country.

If the abolition of slave-manacles began as a vision of hands without manacles, then this is the year; if the shutdown of extermination camps began as imagination of a land without barbed wire or the crematorum, then this is the year; if every rebellion begins with the idea that conquerors on horseback are not many-legged gods, that they too drown if plunged in the river, then this is the year.

So may every humiliated mouth, teeth like desecrated headstones, fill with the angels of bread.

- Imagine the Angels of Bread, Martín Espada

[writer-wrong]

oh love!
 what a strange beast to tame
 so wild and free
 setting your heart on fire 
and making it 
 thump! thump! thump! 
 oh flesh!
 vibrating in my chest,
 red hot and warming my blood
 flushing my cheeks,
 like a hot shower in a 
nor’easter day 
oh brain! 
so chaotic and filled with 
thoughts whizzing by
 about a boy 
or a girl 
or a song
 or whatever 
catches my thoughts 
on the breeze of imagination
 oh me! 
oh glorious me!
 filled with faults and idealism 
so desperate yet so hopeful may you stop the world from 
making you hard
 and stay soft 
like a cool pillow 
or the early morning light
 sneaking in through your window
 oh me! 
 oh love! 
oh new beginnings! 
 oh glorious me!

[writer-wrong]

[writer-wrong]

i am sunk with words unspoken, a cataclysm of ferocious thoughts rushing through the depths of my mind, beating me down against the tugging currents of reality and perspective. it is too easy to compare - to manically look around at the green landscapes surrounding you. you always assume that your flowers are wilting, not flourishing like they should. your garden is unkempt, never as pretty as everybody else’s. stop for just a minute and remind yourself that you are flesh and blood, cells intertwining to tissue, to organs, to the deepest depths of your soul, and watch the sky turn darker as the night rages on. the sky will always be above us, guiding us in direction, always there to remind us that everyday, the sun goes up and then back down, and that no matter how deep we sink, life goes on.