Monday, May 26, 2008

requiem

no one talked to me. at all. maybe I don't remember. but it's altogether possible. they could do that sort of thing. all of them. aunts, cousins, uncles, grandparents. I remember my father's mother being all dramatic falling down almost, like it was about her. like it hurt her more. like it wasn't her fault. albeit indirectly, and more my father's, but still. and I don't think for a moment that she felt that, and that was the reason for her histrionics.

my mother didn't, my father, all wrapped up in themselves, as if it wasn't their fault either. my sister never talked to me under the best of circumstances. we never had real conversations. she normally treated me with contempt or indifference.

no one asked how I was, if they could do anything. not that that would have meant anything, or there was any answer that would mean anything, that they could understand the smallest part of.

I remember coming home afterward, and all the food people brought. I could not eat, even think of it, and I wondered how anyone could. at a time like this. it felt like an insult. do you remember the line in four weddings and a funeral, the speech at the funeral?


by W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one:
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods:
For nothing now can ever come to any good.


when I heard this, I cried, for this was how I felt. how could they eat and talk of mundane things, and go on with their lives and pretend that nothing had happened? had they no hearts? they had not. it was a difficult world to live in, for someone with a heart.


I was 14, and alone. always had been, except for him. but I don't think he knew how I felt, or felt the same. but we were alike, he and i. my sister told me once after, that he and I were closer then they were, even though she was one year younger than him, and I was 5 years younger. that was probably the most honest and meaningful exchange we ever had, and I've never forgotten it. it was one of those things someone tells you after someone dies that always stays with you, and helps you, makes you feel better. because I did not know that at all, being so much younger than them. but he didn't feel it as strongly as I did. I don't think he did, don't think he could have.

This is one of the first things I wrote, when I started to work through this:

The Box

I see it long ago an old movie in my mind I can't see much the box is closed and silent all around no one talks to me but they never did and he did so I didn't care that he hurt me sometimes and I forget that part and I felt anyway and I needed and I fixed on this one thing which is now in the box.

I don't think he needed to do much for me to pin all my affection and hope on him, since there was no other target at all. A small indication that I was worth a little attention. Everywhere else in my life, I was treated with disdain or indifference.

there's nothing like it. he was all I had. no one can grasp what this did to me, what I was left in, that he had been my only hope of escaping. It wasn't just that I was alone at that moment. I did not connect with others. There was nothing for me ever again. I did not have it in myself to get out, and after that, I couldn't do anything. except hurt. so much. for so long. years. so many years. I have been recovering from this and what my father and mother did to me for all this time. and from what they all did to me, and neglected to do. those who tortured me because I was weak, an easy target, there is nothing recriminating enough to say about them. perhaps I should not say them all, and my resentment is lessening. but I can't believe my life would have been so much different anywhere else. which means any of them probably would have behaved the same, and perhaps did, likely did, to others in troubling circumstances, whether that be to torment or turn a blind eye, or just not bother to offer any kindness.

shyness is nice...

my shyness was crippling. shyness is fear. it isn't cute. it isn't precious. and for my parents to completely ignore it the way they did was another instance of their criminal neglect. to leave me there and to then exacerbate the situation by giving me daily proof that my fears were justified. then i went to the other extreme in my thirties to prove to myself i wasn't afraid of people anymore. i would be obnoxious and aggressive. but that was just more fear, mixed with a lot of hatred and resentment.


the smiths-ask

Shyness is nice, and
Shyness can stop you
From doing all the things in life
That you'd like to

Shyness is nice, and
Shyness can stop you
From doing all the things in life
That you'd like to

So, if there's something you'd like to try
If there's something you'd like to try
Ask me - i won't say "no" - how could i ?

Coyness is nice, and
Coyness can stop you
From doing all the things in
Life that you want to

So, if there's something you'd like to try
If there's something you'd like to try
Ask me - i won't say "no" - how could i ?

Spending warm summer days indoors
Writing frightening verse
To a buck-toothed girl in luxembourg

Ask me, ask me, ask me
Ask me, ask me, ask me

Because if it's not love
Then it's the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb
That will bring us together

Nature is a language - can't you read ?
Nature is a language - can anybody read ?

So ... ask me, ask me, ask me
Ask me, ask me, ask me

Because if it's not love
Then it's the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb
That will bring us together

If it's not love
Then it's the bomb
Then it's the bomb
That will bring us together

So ... ask me, ask me, ask me
Ask me, ask me, ask me
Oh, la ...

identity

kelly, janice, jessica probably, i don't remember any of the others. a vagabond, drifting, it occurred to me i could be someone else, and i was terribly desperate to be. janice was chosen for janice joplin, who i imagined myself to be like. an intense tortured soul, misunderstood and damned to misfortune and misery until the self-induced end of a life for a brief time removed from its tormentors, but not released from them. it did not grace me with the epic heart-wrenching eloquent tragedy i imagined; it felt plain and homely and awkward. trailer trash waiting on tables in a cheap, run down diner in some godforsaken wasteland.

bromide

what is that tear, the one that sneaks out of one eye? the mouth didn't twist and the brow did not furrow. the lip didn't tremble. you look at this trite movie, trying to move you, but you go anyway. it doesn't take you where it pointed, so proudly and flamboyantly, with all the bromidic charm of a sit-com. just one tear. then it's gone. but these untruths are still there. that is the tear.

waterfall

Waterfall

It played on Singles just now. "Oh, I love this song." (says the bridgette fonda character. A classic example of the line in the song In Bloom: He's the one Who likes all our pretty songs And he likes to sing along And he likes to shoot his gun But he don't know what it means don't know what it means When I say He's the one Who likes all our pretty songs And he likes to sing along And he likes to shoot his gun But he knows not what it means knows not what it means )
I used to love this song. I felt it, knew it before I did drugs. I think I was about 12 when it really peaked. The song is the same, but I don't know the waterfall anymore. So I loved this song. It was part of me. I longed for that waterfall. It was the waterfall itself. Almost. As close as i could get. The waterfall it spoke of wasn't for me, or I just wasn't using the same waterfall. It probably was heroin. I think that would have been my drug, my waterfall. The only reason I didn't do it was I didn't have the opportunity. This truly horrible man I met, hitchhiking probably, when i was 16, injected something in me he said was heroin, if it was, it was very weak. I felt odd and (diffused?) floaty? But mildly, and not pleasantly, but not unpleasant, and confused. Maybe not so much confused as not thinking clearly. The point is, I took an injection of something I had no idea what it was from a person I knew was no good on the off chance it was heroin. For the waterfall. I am not there anymore, but was for a long time. They pushed me there, to the place where I dreamed the waterfall, even if it wasn't real, even for a little while.


May This Be Love (Waterfall) Lyrics
by Jimi Hendrix

http://youtube.com/watch?v=aKlRAIKef3g

Waterfall
Nothing can harm me at all
My worries seem so very small
With my waterfall

I can see
My rainbow calling me
Through the misty breeze
Of my waterfall

Some people say
Daydreaming's for all the
Lazy minded fools
With nothin' else to do
So let them laugh, laugh at me
So just as long as I have you
To see me through
As long as I have you