licked the bruises of my knees there into peaches, into paradigms
it's bizarre how some people make you feel alone and restless even with your arms around them, but others make you warm and ebullient and full of love just thinking of them.
am up north. turns out when i heard "cabin" 'manda meant "my grandparents' really sweet lake house" and though i have no cellphone signal, there is the far more important wireless. everyone is sleeping, it's been a long day, so of course i am up in a corner thinking semi-useless things like the above for no reason in particular other than i was in my head alone without something to keep it busy.
in my mini-hermit phase this week, i wrote a lot of words that would never be for even semi-public consumption and realized how very little i do that anymore. i didn't have the chance or the energy much in the past two years and somewhere along the way i got into the habit of being oblique continuously.
i was tired so often, there was so much backstory i would never have time to exposit, and connections with other people either fleeting or focused on the present, that unless you were one of the few who already knew, there was a good chance you would never quite know what the hell i was saying. and i didn't mind. it didn't matter. you never feel so beautifully lonely and free as when you travel.
in time i think i even forgot what it was like to come out and say something clearly. not just communicating the image or the emotion and knowing that i'll know and you won't and that's fine because it doesn't matter, i'm really talking to myself here and if you get something out of it, some poetry, a fleeting impression, that's brilliant. but not necessary. i don't really care. (if you somehow get it anyway, understand enough, you have my attention for a little longer, i'm pleasantly surprised. being understood is a heady enough drug even for someone who's forgotten the smell of it.)
it's a matter of privacy too--when i write on paper there's a risk someone will read it, just as much as there is in something like this lj entry, so being obscure allows the break in silence, lets me talk to myself, even in public, without giving anything away.
i hadn't realized how much i had been hiding in my own metaphors from myself that doesn't even need hiding. how many simple, straightforward things i had to say that added up until even being straightforward didn't keep me from getting lost without writing it down. so i wrote it down. wrote without worrying about paragraphs and line breaks and eyes that aren't my own:
i stumbled on a video of the car dashboard from February, realized it was of myself singing, voice scratchy. it was cold but in all the layers i never took off this winter while living at my aunt's, with both a burqa and a jacket over it all, i was warm enough and it was worth it to be alone, somewhere i belonged, to get some sleep on the steering wheel in the parking lot waiting for mom to get out of work. my clothes were mostly from a thrift store because i never went back to dad's to get my things and i didn't even know where it all was anyway--still don't--and nothing fit anymore. just like me. i didn't fit. except in the car, by myself, with songs that belonged to me. i was singing to hold myself, to be my own reassurance because i don't believe in gods--god is what people want when they don't have other people. (even if i believed i'm sure there were people in worse situations than me, who needed more help than i did.) what if i was wrong? what if i had calculated wrong when taking the risk of spending all the money left on applying to only one medical school, even if it was the safest school? i was singing for comfort. i was unsettled and drifting and although things have changed now, i am still adjusting. i still haven't settled. i still don't quite fit.
it's funny how i don't care if people don't understand, but i do care if they do. i don't understand why yet.
am up north. turns out when i heard "cabin" 'manda meant "my grandparents' really sweet lake house" and though i have no cellphone signal, there is the far more important wireless. everyone is sleeping, it's been a long day, so of course i am up in a corner thinking semi-useless things like the above for no reason in particular other than i was in my head alone without something to keep it busy.
in my mini-hermit phase this week, i wrote a lot of words that would never be for even semi-public consumption and realized how very little i do that anymore. i didn't have the chance or the energy much in the past two years and somewhere along the way i got into the habit of being oblique continuously.
i was tired so often, there was so much backstory i would never have time to exposit, and connections with other people either fleeting or focused on the present, that unless you were one of the few who already knew, there was a good chance you would never quite know what the hell i was saying. and i didn't mind. it didn't matter. you never feel so beautifully lonely and free as when you travel.
in time i think i even forgot what it was like to come out and say something clearly. not just communicating the image or the emotion and knowing that i'll know and you won't and that's fine because it doesn't matter, i'm really talking to myself here and if you get something out of it, some poetry, a fleeting impression, that's brilliant. but not necessary. i don't really care. (if you somehow get it anyway, understand enough, you have my attention for a little longer, i'm pleasantly surprised. being understood is a heady enough drug even for someone who's forgotten the smell of it.)
it's a matter of privacy too--when i write on paper there's a risk someone will read it, just as much as there is in something like this lj entry, so being obscure allows the break in silence, lets me talk to myself, even in public, without giving anything away.
i hadn't realized how much i had been hiding in my own metaphors from myself that doesn't even need hiding. how many simple, straightforward things i had to say that added up until even being straightforward didn't keep me from getting lost without writing it down. so i wrote it down. wrote without worrying about paragraphs and line breaks and eyes that aren't my own:
i stumbled on a video of the car dashboard from February, realized it was of myself singing, voice scratchy. it was cold but in all the layers i never took off this winter while living at my aunt's, with both a burqa and a jacket over it all, i was warm enough and it was worth it to be alone, somewhere i belonged, to get some sleep on the steering wheel in the parking lot waiting for mom to get out of work. my clothes were mostly from a thrift store because i never went back to dad's to get my things and i didn't even know where it all was anyway--still don't--and nothing fit anymore. just like me. i didn't fit. except in the car, by myself, with songs that belonged to me. i was singing to hold myself, to be my own reassurance because i don't believe in gods--god is what people want when they don't have other people. (even if i believed i'm sure there were people in worse situations than me, who needed more help than i did.) what if i was wrong? what if i had calculated wrong when taking the risk of spending all the money left on applying to only one medical school, even if it was the safest school? i was singing for comfort. i was unsettled and drifting and although things have changed now, i am still adjusting. i still haven't settled. i still don't quite fit.
it's funny how i don't care if people don't understand, but i do care if they do. i don't understand why yet.