idfkmanimtrying-blog

[idfkmanimtrying-blog]

“Pick up your pen and write.” He explained that with all the time I’d spent with my nose in books… in essays… in quotes… I couldn’t not have something of my own to say. He asked why I was in his visual arts class. “You suck at art anyway.” He told me to give up the paper machete that was clearly boring me to death and pick up an English Lit class and start fucking writing. “You’re too lazy to take the time to learn a visual technique or learn an instrument… so start drinking each night and sharpen your fucking pencils.” He told me that if I had something to share with the world that I had to just do it. I couldn’t wait around to get plucked like a pretty flower and end up dying in someone else’s hands. I had to grow some wings and become a butterfly. They could stare and even admire, but they would never ever catch me. Eat or be eaten so I chose to indulge myself every day and I stopped complaining about having a big belly and I gave up looking in mirrors. I vomited words onto paper and let everyone else take turns swallowing.

[idfkmanimtrying-blog]

My best friend and I were in love with Alexander the Great when we were in high school. We still are at heart. He slept with a copy of the Iliad under his pillow alongside a dagger so he could kill anyone who tried to steal it. He once had sex for thirteen days straight with a tribal leader. When his best friend died, he threw himself on his body and held him all day until he was dragged away. They were compared to Achilles and Patroclus. Alexander was a lover.

[idfkmanimtrying-blog]

He would’ve left me in a lobotomy clinic if it was convenient. I wouldn’t even have left him for jack fucking sparrow.

[idfkmanimtrying-blog]

If all I do is work at a bookstore all my life, but all I do from the moment I wake up to the moment I sleep, is what I want to do, then aren’t I successful?

[idfkmanimtrying-blog]

“Every thing you love is very likely to be lost, but in the end, love will return in a different way.”

–Franz Kafka, Kafka's Selected Stories: A Norton Critical Edition

[idfkmanimtrying-blog]

A fantasy world

I think it is time we all came to our senses to realise that fantasy is all that is real. The trees have souls and they can talk to us all. Think of everybody who is “insane” as a Mad Hatter. If I read every fantasy novel to exist, my head will be filled with all the stuff and nonsense of a wonderful childhood and I shall become a completely nonsensical and childish and present little creature. And I shall prance around my room, singing French songs, writing in a diary, and watching Peter Pan screaming “I do believe in fairies!” Oh Tink, you’re alive! I must never know the morning from the afternoon, only the presence from the not. I shall be here, here, here and write, write, write. And I will act all day long. I will act and act and act. Oh my life is a stage and the curtain is about to come up.

[idfkmanimtrying-blog]

What I could see for us was her, undeniably happy, with a means to travel, the sun on her skin and kisses always on the forehead. I could’ve written a fantasy book for her, handwritten in my dead poet handwriting. I would take her out to anywhere, I’d never get tired of the same locations. The library, the coffee shop, the theatre, the park, the walk along the river. But to stay in with her was something unimaginable. Something terrifying and unknown. I wouldn’t be able to move from the covers ever again. I wouldn’t be able to leave her to shower. I would cower over her as she made tea. I would listen to her breathing drift off to sleep.

[idfkmanimtrying-blog]

I didn’t know what it really was, because I didn’t have a “crush” on her — I had known her for five years after all — but instead I imagined us travelling Japan together, just the two of us. I imagined living in London with her. I imagined going to a jazz bar with her, perhaps the Blues Kitchen in Camden, one of my favourite past times. Finally away from all our friends I could kiss her while they play sax. We would go to cafes in the morning, bookshops in the afternoon, and the theatre of an evening. I would hold her hand in Carnaby Street and lie beside her in Hyde Park. In the cold of Winter I would cuddle her under blankets and in the Summer I would take her by train to Santa Margarita so she could swim in the warm, clear water.

[idfkmanimtrying-blog]

I feel something undeniably real for her. She is my sweetness. She makes me want to be open, true and transparent. She makes me want to open my heart, speak from my chest and be a good moral person. She makes me chase the good. She is caring and kind, generous and loving. But so strong and daring and fierce. She is untouchable and a force to be reckoned with. She makes me want to learn all the languages of the world, read all the ancient scriptures and turn water into wine. I don’t want to own her or have sex with her. I want to kiss her shoulder… her hand. Touch her face and hold her waist. I’d like to have the courage to look her in the eye and tell her I love her. It’s not lust. It’s not infatuation. It’s true and whole and it’s banging on the walls of my heart, begging me to let her know I’d give her anything.

[idfkmanimtrying-blog]

I wanted to write him a letter. I had already written him a whole diary. But I wanted to write a letter full of everything I ever wanted him to know.

I wanted to keep it in my purse and on the off chance that I ever ran into him again, I would hand it to him without a word.

I hoped he would reply and I hoped that he wouldn’t.

If he replied it meant he loved me and it was real.

If he didn’t then at least he knew I loved him.

[idfkmanimtrying-blog]

I was a writer and he was loved by me which means he will live forever. Unfortunately, I will not be remembered because I will never sign my name on anything.

I will forever write him letters so he will forever live on.

When I write I get a little carried away and my emotions are more dramatic than they really are. It’s almost as though when I write I’m not writing from this world but from another.

Writing makes everything mean so much more.

He means so much more on page than in person.

[idfkmanimtrying-blog]

we call ourselves writers

I always wanted to make something of myself. I would watch a movie about a pianist and next thing I had bought a keyboard I would use once and never again. I wanted to mix beats so I would download software just for it to take up storage on my laptop. I wanted to work in the film industry so I just sat around all day watching films. I wanted to be apart of all my loves but it never was meant to be. I was a consumer. I just loved them and that was it. I didn't want to disturb them. So I settled back into my normal job and life and I thought about how if I kept reaching for all these things... where would it end? I wanted to do this and when I did that I would want to do something else. The only thing that ever came easy was writing. Was I a writer or did I just write? And it wasn't like I was going to go to uni to study literature. I wouldn't waste the money. But maybe I could just submit something. Maybe I could be brave. Maybe I could still make something of myself.

[idfkmanimtrying-blog]

on teens

I wasn't the teenager that I had been. I still was a teenager though; for only eight more months.

I loved going to parties. I was always laughing. Did I love everyone, or did I just want everyone to know I loved myself?

My favorite thing to do was to watch films from the 80s. I was a simple girl.

I loved to talk to people until I got scared and would go ghost. I hated that about me.

My heart always felt heavy.

I had a full-time job and responsibilities, but I still had dreams of taking on the world.

[idfkmanimtrying-blog]

when you think you've moved on

you can tell yourself whatever you want to hear. you can always tell yourself you moved on. i hadn't seen him in sixteen months. come on now... moved on??? i was still counting the days spent apart! i would still tell myself tales of what he might be thinking about me. i didn't expect to actually see him.

there was rain on the windshield and he was a blur because i wasn't wearing my glasses. i only saw his figure for half a second before i dropped down into my seat. i couldn't even be sure that it was him. but i knew that even if my eyes had deceived me, like many times before, my heart could not. and if you had felt the pang of love i felt in my chest, you would know the ache i felt for that boy. the boy i hated, the boy who disgusted me. the love i had for him was pure and unconditional and danced through time despite the music ending years ago.

for a few minutes, my badly suppressed memory of what he had meant to me flooded back, and i couldn't even lie to myself anymore. i call him abusive and neglecting, psychotic and draining. but you are what you love. and god did i know i loved him.

god did i know that if we met face to face i wouldn't even be able to look at him. and he would cry right there. and no matter the rules i had made for myself, i would kiss him. and kiss him and kiss him and kiss him. and the best part is, i know he would kiss me back.

[idfkmanimtrying-blog]

a dead lovebird; just a bird

he wanted to visit Edinburgh and i hadn't even heard of the city before him. we were to move there the following year. he would study and i would write. i did go there the next year. alone, of course. but i heard his thoughts in my head alongside every cobblestone i stood on.

initially i had planned to lay the necklace he gave me in Edinburgh, as an act of letting go of his memory and leaving it somewhere he loved. it wasn't somewhere he loved when it was around my neck. but i was angry and drunk one night in Seville. i tore it off my neck and threw it across the street. i tried to search for it the next morning but he was nowhere to be seen.

[idfkmanimtrying-blog]

sinners and hedonists

nobody loved me anymore, so i made myself some tea. no one wanted to play, so i ended it in the sea. no one wanted intimacy, so i gauged on plums and pears. no one drank like fish, so i'd pray but always swear.

[idfkmanimtrying-blog]

on moving in then moving on

i wrote him into my life with poetry. he wrote himself out. when i want to talk to him, i write to him in a yellow notebook. i wrote him all the time. but there's more blank pages now.