Allow me to deflect, a late night flow of consciousness.

I met a man that I would fall in love with twice over. When things got hard he bolted. I met yet another man on Grindr and in the span of three weeks we went from texting, to spending 4 nights a week together. Until things got real, and he bolted. Evidently, people are afraid to be a crutch. Like partnership is all jolly ranchers and cake.

Hard times.  I wonder if we’re equipped for such things. Or if all men want is something impressive to show off to the instagram ether. And when its all said and done, if things get bad, then hell, lets go back to the meat market because there are 150 million other sad, lost, drug addicted, work addicted, gym addicted mentally ill souls that you can throw yourself at because isn’t that what its all about now?

I have the unlucky privilege of being objectively hot. I should know, as the currency of my looks has bought me so many tickets to after parties and a couple instagram follows from people I’ve never met. Oh how interesting you must be because you have good skin, a six pack and a hairline that doesn’t quit. We will meet and we will romanticize each others’ potential until we both notice the small cracks in the porcelain hearts we try so hard to protect.

I fucked your friend. Not out of spite but because he was genuinely hot and why should you care, it’s what all the boys are doing. Oh you think I’m cynical and glass half empty? Maybe so. But try to convince me otherwise.

I met a journalist who could analyze a room full of people but had no idea what I was feeling. It makes me wonder what all that analyzation has taught you about yourself.

I fall in love with married men now. Most of the time I don’t know they’re married until it comes up over drinks on the third date. I think I do it because I am painfully avoidant and these men feel safe. Or perhaps maybe half love is what I feel I deserve.

Unconditional love wasn’t a thing at my house. My mother, ever the victim always blamed me for her moods. “Whats wrong with you?” She would say. My father, ever the victim. “Oh I guess I’m a terrible father then?!” In response to every constructive criticism. You are whats wrong with me. You are.

How do you outgrow your makers? How do you let in the people you are convinced will break your heart because the first man you ever dated was a fashion designer who was 20 years older than you, and he sent revenge porn to your boss when you were too young to know what kind of violation that was? By the way, that fashion designer has aged exactly how I guessed he would: his face looks as dried and sad and ugly as his painfully botoxed heart which bleeds quagulated blood and pus. I see you for who you are, but I still cant help but blame myself for that one.

Do you have any reason to believe that things will get better? Allow me to deflect: I find myself hoping that we can all go back to the old days of writing letters and dropping our cameras at the 24 hour photo, with giddy anticipation of what we will see in the film. Butts, and light leak perhaps.

Its June. Every gay person is freaking out because PRIDE. Let’s all take drugs and have sex and call it protest. It’s a protest after all isn’t it? Look, no shame in sex! I have so much of it but I dont need pride to give me permission to be a slut. I’ll leave that to Grindr.

Do you feel like a king when you get more followers? Do you think it even matters? I guess it does in a way. Daddy’s gotta pay his bills, and how if not whoring yourself to Meta, the same people who want you dead or in a  concentration camp. Curious.

I am no victim, and yet, I mourn each passing day like it was wasted. So maybe I am a victim. Fuck. Just like my parents. A monster was made, It was me.

Where to go? What to do? Produce produce produce. That’s what they tell you to do.

Answering a text does not a friendship make. And saying you’re a friend and acting like one are two different things. I have lost many friends this year but you know what? I have gained a lot of clarity. Much of which is admitting that so much of this is my own fault. Because I’m avoidant. Because the pain runs too deep to trust even the kindest of strangers.

maybe its just the thoughts that were crooked all along

OBSCURA MUTABILIS

and the dark and night of the soul

Reflections on becoming, an ongoing project

4.4.25

Spring

LOVE LETTER TO THE OPEN ROAD

A woman at work lost her husband last year.
She’s 65.
She doesn’t know who she is anymore.
She sits in the home that they created together.
She knows she’ll never be with another man, forever.
Maybe we don’t know who we are without others.
All this talk of self sufficiency and
independence. Maybe
it’s a scam.

I wrote a love letter to the open road last week.
It spat in my face.

I lost my health insurance today. It feels like a call to get it together (because what a mess), but all I want is to meet you there.
Middle of nowhere.

I wasn’t alone when I took these. I was with someone. It was joyous, but it feels
lonely now.

I started getting social anxiety a few years ago.
House parties and groups make me feel
like I’m naked at a job interview.
I always wanted a group of queer friends,
except I don’t know how.
Maybe that’s why the road keeps callin.

I grew up in many homes.
I have a phd in escape artistry from the school of life.
Ask me why I left. Again
and again. Theories galore. But
I don’t want to be a
bore.

The essence of life
is suffering,
or so says Jenny Lewis.
We saw her live.
I want to sell it all and drive
into the sunset. (RE: escape artistry. See above)

Who’s lost a friend to unrequited love?
All the things left unsaid?
All the assumptions and misunderstandings.
I’ve lost many. To that, to the distance, the belief that they’re better off, to the open
road.
I’ve gained a fair bit too.

And what is the open road without these thoughts in my head and my hands on the wheel?
what is the open road without the wind in my hair and a destination unknown?

kleenex

These photos were taken 2 years apart today.

The first one in a hotel in Utah. The second a bathtub in Chicago.

I’ve cried in the likes of hotel rooms and bathtubs.

Crying in the bath is particularly convenient.

No mess and easy to submerge and emerge, face anew. Voilà.

Cars. I’ve cried in so many cars.

Bars. A few of those too,

most recently holding a very strong piña colada, across from a friend.

People need to cry more, You know?

I’m going to keep crying, I tell you.

And one day, the tears of which I’ve mourned so deeply will run dry.

Undoubtably I’ll have something or someone else to cry about because alas, It’s me, the sap.

I cry at the simplest of things now,

but I also see the beauty in the smallest things too.

That’s the thing about being sensitive.

Ugly crying on the subway. I’m talking snot.

Crying about the fact that all that love just wasn’t enough.

The woman across from me is curious,

I can tell.

Who wouldn’t be, I guess.

Let it out, she says.

Let it out.