kinda wordsworth kinda zenon

"Plastic has climbed down, it is a household material. It is the first magical substance which consents to be prosaic. But it is precisely because this prosaic character is a triumphant reason for its existence: for the first time, artifice aims at something common, not rare. And as an immediate consequence, the age-old function of nature is modified: it is no longer the Idea, the pure Substance to be regained or imitated: an artificial Matter, more bountiful than all the natural deposits, is about to replace her, and to determine the very invention of forms."

---Roland Barthes, Mythologies 


I'm back, bitches.

I'm back because,
for the first time in a long time,
I've experienced a moment.

A full-bodied, multi-note moment.

I've experienced the future.

The future has top notes
of coffee tang, base notes
of crushed magnolias, heart notes
of aged paper.

All laying on petaled grass, neck
wrapped in rose-tinted plastic.

In life, you never see the big picture.
You see sweaty palms in job interviews,
neurons tangled with missed deadlines,
a passive aggressive facebook status,
a scar on your ankle,
slices of skin in bed.

But sometimes
sometimes
sometimes
the carousel of it all
aligns with a pure thought.

"This is exactly where
7-year-old Ali placed
me in her brain."

Laying in the grass under the
lacy shade of magnolia trees in
front of a university
library reading
Genesis with
legs outstretched toes
painted the color of
flower throats peeking
through sparkle-captured
plastic sandals finally
appreciating the earthy taste
of coffee sipping flipping sipping
feeling each swallow through the
choker wearing the black tank top not
letting the black tank top wear me sweet
thoughts of last rum-soaked night sweet
thoughts of exchanged breath sweet
thoughts of toes bent sweet
Manhattan office sweet
iced coffee sweet
syllables sweet
you.

I never saw "Pieces of April" but
I looked for it every time I went
to Blockbuster as a kid
hoping that someday
I would bloom into
someone half as
badass as Katie
Holmes in a
choker.

Ryan spit on me because he cares

I'm wearing the black tank top,
not letting the black tank to wear me.
Plastic has climbed down or maybe
I've climbed up but either
way I've turned the
page.

Weird life goals

⁂

Don't be scared, because there are no endings.

During my transition from "then" to "now," I was afraid of an asterism. The little signals were everywhere--coffee mug drips stained into triangles, my Cheerios broke into tiny asterisks, my heart stopped, then beat again. The television static that peppers closed eyes formed alive pools of punctuation. I felt like Robert Frost, and caesuras were my spider.

Yet.

I'm still here.

Not just my body.

Me.

I'm proud to announce the progress of my awareness.

Yet

sleep is still a sticky sphere for me. 

Death's cousin is depression's dominatrix.

Yet

the people that I love the most still scare me out of my skin.

Anxiety kills the filter of rationality.

Yet

today in lit class, while I savored the discussion, devouring thoughts like homemade pasta sauce

My own thoughts were clouded, clouded, clouded with the words: I need counseling.

I've decided that the best remedy is

living,

yet I have a lot to come to terms with.

There are still mute moments

but only he seems to notice.

Explanations are extraneous errands

but sometimes you have no choice.

It hasn't rained in a while

and I could snuggle inside

and brew tea 

and eat toast with

raspberry enjambment

genuine.

Times have been tough, man. Times have been tough. I remember a time in my life when misery was so constant that it was indiscernible. Tasteless. It’s not quite the dictionary definition of depression, but that’s what it was. And once you seek help, once things get real, they ask you a lot of questions. “Have you ever thought of hurting yourself?” “Have you ever thought of ending your life?” The answer to the first question was no, I haven’t. I never thought about it, but I have. I’ve never cut myself, but I didn’t allow myself to leave my room. I didn’t eat. I didn’t sleep. I didn’t exercise. I didn’t shower. Often, I didn’t even leave my bed. The thing is, the thought of the action never materialized in my mind, but gathered like a haze around every other possible action I could have taken. A haze of inevitability. Of blindness. The same goes for not sleeping. I never thought of depriving myself of sleep, but my body left me no other option. It was the only action potential. Obligations make it easier, whether they are real or contrived obligations. Computers make it simple. You just follow the infinite path of hyperlinks until the sun rises again. Until you have to put on a layer of concealer and playact another day.

It’s summer now. But it’s the edge of summer. The sun’s more golden than white. It’s more forgiving than it was. The air is thick with wisdom, and is heavy with the crisp spice of a distant but impending chill. I spent the day alone. I’m trying to relearn what it’s like to be a body. To truly belong to yourself. I’ve been going to the gym every other day. Half the exercise is mental. Convincing myself that I exist, and not only comparatively. I focus on the heat of my body. The swaying of my limbs. The insular world of my thoughts. All of this instead of looking at the women on the ellipticals surrounding me, seeing if they’re looking at me, and if so, how they’re looking at me. And in turn, how I should act in response to that judgment. I try to stop myself from looking at the mirror-covered wall every few minutes to remind myself I’m there. I’m getting pretty good at letting my thoughts melt like butter into my surroundings, so that I’m in the foreground again. I like to dip my fingers in hot candle wax. Not for the burn, but for the small sculptures.

I haven’t forgotten the second question. It lies in the back of my mind, dormant, but awakened whenever I see something sharp enough to end things. An X-Acto knife. A table corner.  A cigarette. Words said in context. Her house at the end of my street.

The thought is pervasive, but never true. It’s never a want. It’s not even a conceivable path. I laid on the bedrock of my depression every night only months ago. I can still remember the distinct sourness of that cold sweat. I felt myself dissolve. But never disappear. There were way too many tethers.

It’s August now. I sleep, but never before sunrise. Heart pounding, thoughts racing, I spent all summer trying to figure out why. Yesterday it hit me. It hits me every night, but I never knew its language. I didn’t want to. The thought is: It’s all moving too fast. I want to stop time. I want closure. I want a say in things. Sleeping is acquiescing to the idea of turning a page. Moving on. Aging another day. Stepping one hour farther away from the time it all fell apart, and no one heard a sound.

Sleeping feels like giving up. The corporeal equivalent of saying, “Okay, universe. You got me. I’ll go on living like this.”

No.

I’m going to click hyperlinks until this all makes sense.

I’m going to dye my hair until it’s dead and brittle.

I’m going to write until my eyes crystalize.

I’m not going to comply.

There’s only one question that really matters at all: Why?

It often stems into:

Why did they leave me? Why do they look at me that way? Why can’t I breathe unless I’m alone? Why don’t my clothes fit? Why does nothing matter anymore?

These questions only serve to refract the answers. Forgetting about loyalties, forgetting about morals, I have to think about the root. I have to think about the psychology.

I’ve had social anxiety since I was thirteen. It felt foreign, like an alien abduction. Invasion of the body snatchers. It wasn’t a part of my personality, but it was a part of me. Eventually, I couldn’t distinguish them apart.

Which leads me to here. Grasping onto the realization I needed to allow myself to move on.

Goodnight.

just keep creating

sanity log x

I'm avoiding things again. There's a wall within me that emerges from the closed, dark room behind my lungs, blocking the neurotransmissions that prompt me to do any homework at all. I know that this isn’t a reaction to any distaste for boredom, because I'm genuinely excited for this psychology class. And quite honestly, reading about psychology appeals more to me than anything Tumblr has to offer at this hour. I hunger for solid knowledge, facts and figures that can fuel my observations. I want to feel the satisfying whisper of pencil against paper, the reaffirming squeal of hot pink highlighter against pencil. 

The good news is that I'm prismatic again. A long post-breakdown sleep followed by an amazing day with friends sparked my zest for life again. I never knew how to respond when I was asked if I lost interest in things and activities I used to enjoy. I don't think I could ever genuinely answer, "yes" to that question, but in retrospect, I can notice a dampening of my interests. An overflow of creative urges is the norm for me, and I haven't felt that in a while.

But I think the homework avoidance is more out of habit, like psychological muscle memory. I think that my subconscious consistently used to jumble my concentration in an effort to get me to face the truth of my emotions. My subconscious recognized that I had something much more important than work to take on. In all of its efforts to refocus my attention, I spent all of my energy trying to avoid that focus, immersing myself in low-intensity internet browsing instead of taking a simple fucking moment to look at myself. To ask for help.

I've fortunately passed that benchmark. Recognition is the most difficult battle in the war, but there are many, many battles. I have to somehow destroy the anxiety I associate with homework. I have to train my brain to focus on the present, because today, that's what I need. That's enough.

And I've come to many realizations lately, mostly fueled by my dreams. So many useful realizations, in fact, that today, I thought to myself, "WOW!!! I give myself the best advice in my dreams! They're exactly tailored to my deepest feelings, fears, hopes, and anxieties. It's better than a counselor!"

Hold up, Ali G.

Did you just (kinda) figure out the essential benefit of sleeping?!!?!?!?!??!?!?!?

And the invaluable reason for dreaming?!?!?!?!??!?!

That it prepares you for the day/days to come?!?!?!?!??!

That you can't just skip out on that, because you will be physically and emotionally unready as a result?!??!?!?!

That you are a human being, and that staying up doesn't make you a demigod?!??!?! That it doesn't make you stronger, doesn't prove anything at all?!?!??! That taking a moment (6 or more hours, preferably) of the deepest "me time" known to science is something you not only deserve, but require!??!??!??!?!?!?!?!?!

WWWHHHHHAAAAAOOOOOOHHHHHHHHTTTTTHHHHHHEEEERRRREEEE

Do I taste a breakthrough?

xxxxxxxxxx

I've been having a lot of ultra-clear, high-definition, super useful dreams lately. They seem to come in clean episodes. Maybe it's my mind mirroring the 40-minute blocks of Breaking Bad I down on a regular basis. Maybe I'm too clever for my own good.

One lesson I've learned from them is that I not only crave, but need closeness more than anything. I had a series of dreams in which I either reconnected with past crushes or talked to current crushes, and the time we spent together was extremely brief, but honest and meaningful. There was no screen of superficiality. Just brief, absolutely honest conversation. One ended with an honest smile and a genuine wave of "’til next time," which opened the door to further communication between us. One progressed to hand-holding, walking together actually cheek-to-cheek, feeling each other's warm, energy mingling, bodies close. The third resulted in a public display of closeness, but there was no anxiety surrounding it. We exchanged a few words, but mostly had our bodies close, not looking directly at each other, but tangled in an embrace with our faces against each other, close enough to kiss, but not kissing. None of the dream encounters I had with these boys were sexual, or even romantic; they were mostly honest and spiritually powerful. What I need, and what I crave, is closeness like this--not just with crushes, but friends, potential friends, everyone I care about. Giving all of myself to someone can be done in small but meaningful actions, and it's always worth it. I could live off of that feeling alone.

So, friends and stalkers, here's my declaration: at the risk of rejection, I am willing to get close to people. That's step one, always. Romance comes in its own time. Closeness is the seed of all social meaning in life.

I better sleep before this entire post becomes hypocritical.

Love forever,
Ali

april was an existentialist

April was an existentialist. She only believed in moments she could taste with her tongue outstretched, and with that, she deemed her story less important than the others, especially that of May. April and May could have easily been sisters. When they laughed, the sounds wove together, and when they cried, daffodils found the strength to get out of bed in the morning. In the dark, you could barely tell them apart.

Yet everything was more saturated about May. She was brimming with consequence. Even her biology reflected this, her full body barely losing in a constant, precarious quarrel with her clothes. Her eyes carried the innocence and wisdom of sea glass, only made more beautiful by rogue tides. A guy could bask in her forever.

April was considered beautiful, but in an objective kind of way. Her clothes never seemed to fit quite right, either restricting her breath or swallowing her shape. Her eyes were often bright, but unstable, flitting from amber to dirt. You'd want to place April behind glass. You'd want to feature her under the gloss of a fashion magazine. You'd want to keep April at a safe distance. You'd want to fuck her, but only in your mind.

Many are colder than April, yet poets always consider her the cruelest. Maybe it's the way she warms your skin in one breath and leaves you frostbitten in the next. Maybe it's the way her harsh breezes overpower her subtle sunshine. Maybe it's that she's impossible to forecast, always one arm's reach out of your grasp. Maybe she's afraid of herself.

precarious

.