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Eerie Feeling

05/03/2024

It's always an eerie feeling when you realize that the person you're listening to is dead. Their thoughts made this chord progression. Now they're gone?

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Seconds

09/04/2023

Every night I play this game. Every second that I wait is crucial, but I like to pretend that the seconds don’t mean very much. I like to pretend that a second is just a second and nothing more. I go about all my other obligations, convincing myself that once more second will do no harm. I finish a paragraph. I send a message. I watch a video. All of these seconds add up, and together they start to count against me. By the end of the night, my tea is always cold.

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A Kiss

09/02/2023

At times, I simply long for a kiss. Not from a beloved, or an unrequited, or from the one I once loved, but a kiss from anyone who would be so sincere. The feeling of lips upon lips, heat simmering just underneath the skin, flourishing along the veins like vines to an abandoned home. To be entangled in one’s embrace. Fiery fingerprints along the arms, traces against the thighs, palms curved around the hips. I long for a kiss that will push and pull me in waves, ones which do not have to lead me towards anything else. Let us drift afloat however dictated by the sea. A purposeful kiss, one filled with the intent of the moment and nothing more. To be held by someone in a way that roughly translates to desire but not necessarily love. Lips melting into the veins of the neck, plump and forgiving against a firm jaw. Take me in these arms so that we can move as one. Flesh against flesh, and underneath that, bones against bones. A kiss that never needs reason: Romance for romance’s sake. Our ideas may be pronounced but they need not be realized. I long for a kiss, everything that it brings, and everything that it forgives.

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Definitely Maybe

07/11/2023

A map of the Earth rounded out in the palm of my hand. A giant globe. You’re sitting on the couch across from the fireplace. Earlier you were laying on the floor. My guitar sits in the corner, long abandoned from when you first sat on the couch and before you laid down on the floor. An old, unpolished floor. Rough oak covered in a thin layer of dust. Two glasses of bitter red wine I poured for us when we first walked in, yours now a little more empty than mine. Behind me, the box is playing with the volume down to three. I listen along half-mindedly as I play with this globe. You, too, played with the globe before you laid down on the floor and after you abandoned my guitar in the corner (after you first sat on the couch): After I poured us red wine and before you laid down on the floor. I can smell the ashes in the fireplace. This room is too small for a fireplace. I can’t light a cigarette in this room but you did anyway. The smell of smoke is still lingering in the air and pulling out the smells from the fireplace. The ashes are dead clumps underneath charred logs of wood but the dry cigarette smoke seems to have revived them. I can smell the warmth of frigid winters past. Everything lingers in the air, trapped in the space between the molecules that aren’t us or the guitar or the couch or the fireplace or the wine glasses or the box or the globe. The windows are old, their cream colored paint now a yellowish hue and peeling from the frames. They are jammed shut and probably have been for a decade now. Any smoke from the fireplace will stay here forever. The smoke from your cigarette. The dust that has settled in the fabric of your blue jacket. The scent of fresh biscuits baked in the sorry corner of a kitchen. The trails of earl grey brewed as their pairing that follow behind. The buzzy, muted sounds you made with my guitar. The notes of cabernet sauvignon that hit me strongest when I turn my face to the window. The white noise from the box playing at a three. Everything we said and anything we might say. Here it lays and here it will stay forever.

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Midnight Freeway

07/01/2023

When you’re driving late at night to some place that’s too far away: That’s when it all starts to make sense. The worse drivers become worst once the sun goes down. The night seems to flip a switch inside them. They are nocturnal. Their senses go into overdrive like a cat that’s been asleep all day and doesn’t know where to put their energy once night falls. People in a rush to get to the nightlife. People in a rush to get to the emergency room. People in a rush to escape the musty confines of a bar. They all swerve in and out of lanes, leaving you unscathed just barely. A barrel down the freeway under the guidance of the bright, reflective lanes. Then there are those who can’t handle the lights. Everything becomes too blinding against the backdrop of a smoggy purpleish-grey. The lights from their dashboard are too distracting. The lights on the lampposts are too distracting. The reflection of their headlights against every surface is too distracting. They drive alongside you just barely in focus. Their brains scramble the colors and betray their eyes. And as you sail forward, flashes of blue and red illuminate the corner of your vision. Ambulances and cop cars and twisted metal and heads in hands. Hands up to the purpleish-grey. White sheets tucked into gurneys and navy clad arms holding out breathalyzers. All the people left on the sidelines and all the lives forever changed just a flash in your peripherals. Your car is your sanctuary. It is yours to control and protect. You follow some rules and you break others. You keep moving forward on your way to somewhere just like everyone else. All the things that could go wrong threatening to collide. Sirens, the road signs that are so much larger than you realize, traffic cones, high beams, electronic billboards. Yellow, white, green, orange and red. Trees, steel poles, and walls of cement. You, in your car, trying to control your space. You, in your car, trying to get from one space to another. You in your car, amongst the sea of cars, flying through the freeway. Use your turn signals. Check your blind spots. Keep your eyes on the road. Never, ever, go backwards.

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Dreamland

06/24/2023

It’s never “I love you”, “You are special”, “I adore you”, or “I’ll stay with you forever and ever until the Earth collapses in on itself”. It’s always “You’re so pretty”. All of my lovers in all of my fantasies repeat this like a mantra. They go in circles and take turns: “You’re so pretty”, “You’re so pretty”, “You’re so pretty”. Maybe I really don’t want much more. Maybe I can survive on that phrase alone. 

No. 

We all know that I am just too terrified to fantasize about something that’s actually meaningful.

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Morning Walk

06/13/2023

Blades of grass adorned with neat lines of morning dew. Your headphones pipe through the voice of somebody who hasn’t breathed in this sweet summer air in years. Layered acoustics and double-tracked melodies mix in with the sound of birds that wake up every morning to sing these same songs. With each step forward the sun grows more confident. A cat disappears down into the sewer drain. You think about how long it took for this song to grow on you. You could only play it once for them then, and when you had, they couldn’t hear what you hear now. You had one shot and you blew it. Your chest aches with all the things you want but can’t have. Your head dreams of greatness: Your heart knows the truth. These days you wanna be in love with something other than a fantasy. They said there’s so much more to life than sitting around and waiting for it to pass by… 

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"I miss you."

05/23/2023

“I miss you”. Not here anymore. Gone missing. Disappeared. 

“I miss you.” Skipped. Did not attend. Absent. 

“I miss you.” Passed. Rushed. Slipped on through. 

“I miss you.” Let go. Allow. Disregard. 

“I miss you.” Avoid. Get away. Escape.

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When you’re not down in a slump and bogged down by all the negative stuff in your head, How To Disappear Completely might not seem like the best Radiohead track. But when you are… 

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Mistakes

04/12/2023

It’s the 4th day. The day when I start to fester in my mistake. I messed up. Now I am restless. My right foot is bouncing up and down against the floor. My brain is trapped inside my skull. I have made a big giant mistake. Now I have to dig myself out of it before I begin to rot.

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Loneliness and Selfishness

03/24/2023

It’s sort of sad that we will never find someone exactly like us. We all live so deep within our own heads, running laps around our own thoughts. The only way we will ever experience the world is through our own eyes. And a lot of people advocate for selflessness. They harp on “being the better person” and implore us to “walk in other people’s shoes”. To be selfless is a beautiful and necessary thing. But at times I wish I could sit across from that ideal person. I would share everything in my head and they would agree with everything I said. They would disagree with everything I hated. To sit and listen to an album all by yourself; you encapsulate yourself in these feelings and sentiments towards the music. It’s a very lonely experience because you know that no one else will experience this album the way you do. Reading a book is lonely. Watching a movie is lonely. Only you will feel the way you do about it. There will be no one in this world that will stand firmly alongside you and “I see this piece of art exactly as you do.” Sometimes, those around you may not even have the faintest idea of these interests of yours or care for it in the slightest. You have to sit with yourself and be willing to escape from all the dissonance in the world around you. And naturally, disagreement is perfect. Disagreement is necessary. Not a single one of us is the perfect human being. We all have ways of doing and experiencing and this is a wonderful thing. But sometimes I wish I could lay over my favorite blanket under a stary sky and confess to the person next to me. And I wish that this person would lay there and listen, no judgment or ill-will in their heart, no strong pangs of disagreement or disappointment when I said the wrong thing. Nothing but love, sincerity, and agreement as we discuss our favorite things in the world. I wish I could be my own best friend.

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Regrets

03/21/2023

I will try my hardest to be something you do not regret. When your memory is swept away from you in a storm, I will try my hardest to plant my feet. I will try my hardest to be everything you love and nothing you hate. I will lay with you in silence, laugh with you in joy, and dance with you in grace. They will reach in and try to take it all away. They will pick this all apart until it is a desert without sovereignty. They will make you start from the ground up and from one side to the other. This will all be barren in the end. But when you see me sat across from you on the plane to somewhere, you will remember me as something. Something you used to know from the inside. Something you used to get to where you wanted. To forget me would be to regret the choice you made. Maybe you do not love me anymore. But I am unregrettable. Maybe then we can end over and reach our beginning. 

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Our Story

03/20/2023

You’re here. I’m there. I feel left out. I’m in my head thinking about all the things you could be. I’m always looking, always in the background. Like a creep. You’re always there, in the back of my head. Like a creep. Clinging onto every piece of information. It’s everywhere, afloat in the air as I reach out. You rest in the pictures of my dreams. Day ones and night ones. I waited all day for a second split in two. Do your legs bounce like mine with the anxiety of anticipation? I wish you would leave me out of this. I wish you would take me in. I wish you would let me rest. And I wish you would wake me up. I feel so bad. I feel so insecure. I feel so incapable. How do you feel? How will I know? Why do I care? I take the time I can get. Time only you can give me. My mind ponders on the linear but are we forever bound to be so cyclical? Treading the tightrope of a friendship. So will I fall off, or reach the other side? I’ll hang on to every word you say along the line. All this buildup for an ambiguous finale. When the day comes and this story ends, will you take me with you or would you leave me behind? All I know is: it will end. “Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story.”

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Streaming Services

02/15/2023

Endless streams of entertainment. Streaming. Literally. Streaming services. The constant flow of a river. The steady flow of tears. Streams of consciousness. It does not end. It is not in its nature to end. “A steady, continuous stream of something.” The movies keep coming. The songs keep coming. The shows keep coming. Trends, advertisements, posts. We have created a monster of an insatiable nature. Everything happens so fast; Nothing is absorbed. The conversation is perpetually paused to be continued at another time, but evidently, we never come back around to it. We move on because there was nothing sustainable about the topic in the first place. Our news comes to us with no nuance. Laughing, berating, name calling, very easily digestible emotions. Our books are easy. Words known by everyone that convey simple feelings. Never that “ah-ha” moment where the precise feeling and the perfect word intersect. Often just a commonplace vocabulary for a generalized idea. Reels, TikToks, Shorts. Scroll, scroll, scroll your thumb gently across the screen. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a stream. Can humanity ever learn to sit in silence ever again? If a stream is meant to be continuous and perpetual, how can we ever stop scrolling? TV always playing in the background replacing the warmth of a fireplace. Music always playing in the background replacing the sound of your consciousness. So many things to think about and so little time to ponder. Glancing at your phone in the movie theater to check the time. Time is so precious, God forbid you immerse yourself into something for more than an hour at a time. To check the text. Always yearning for a constant stream of attention. The darkness scares you. Can’t talk about the movie! The silence scares you. Can’t share your feelings! The silence scares you. Leaving the theater and “How was the movie?” “It was good!” Move onto the next thing. Let us not dwell on the past. Let us move perpetually forward. Pushing and shoving our way to the front because we only have 80 years so let us not waste it. Allow the world to graze the surface of our skin, but never let it in. Let us pluck a thing from its context and throw it to the wind. Set it afloat in the stream. One day we cared, the next day we didn’t. A phone is a man’s best friend for the insane amount of attention it gives us. There is no rehab for this addiction. “We have endless information!” They shout. But do we have knowledge? Do we care for genuine understanding? A “hello” and then a “goodbye”. A “goodmorning” followed by a “goodnight”. If you sit by the lake and look at the stream, you will be hypnotized. If you sit on your couch and look at the stream, you will be consumed.

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The Consumption Dilemma

02/13/2023

I really cannot fathom how people can bite their forks. Teeth, raw and solid, against metallic, unrelenting silver. Scraping. Scratching at the enamel. The clink shoots to the back of your brain like some extreme form of therapy. Electrotherapy, waterboarding, the malpractice of hypnosis with the impending goal of serious psychic harm, and fork intervention. The biting of the spoon is an abominable action of an equally-serious caliber. Why ignore the soft, plump, malleable puffiness of lips in favor of terrible teeth. One can gently pull their food into their mouth with such harmless grace, yet so many of us choose the more painful option. The option that imbeds itself into the cracks in your eardrums. Nails on a chalkboard. Worse yet, when you graciously allow someone a bite of your meal and they scrape their teeth all over your utensils. A visceral shock runs through your veins from the point where your fingers meet the silver and it travels up your arm, and into your brain. Your mind buzzes as you feel all your neurons short circuiting. Such a simple solution to our dilemma. Teeth are made for chewing. Hardness enclosed on softness. Just take a second to imagine the horror of attempting a kiss between two sets of teeth. Humans have learned, through a long process of evolutionary trial and error, the proper way to kiss each other. That lip to lip contact that is so intoxicating. One that would be entirely repulsive if it were to be replaced by teeth on teeth. The simple explanation for this is: Hard surface on equally hard surface. Scraping. Scratching. Grating. Clashing. Absolutely abhorrent. Yet most of us eagerly endure this when eating our food with the assistance of metallic food-eating tools. We subconsciously choose to scrape the fragile enamel with the harsh argentiferous. Dinner should be the passionate kiss “goodbye” to a meticulously-made sustenance. Instead we treat it with all the grace of a bad dentist appointment. Stop biting the spoons. Stop scraping the forks. Stop going through the motions.

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The Male Genius

02/01/2023

The male genius. 

I am a woman, yet somehow I have become entirely enthralled with the male genius. 

The male genius is a myth, of course. And it is not miraculously that I have come to center so much of my media consumption around this myth. Putting on a new movie, picking up a new book, listening to a new album. These male geniuses are everywhere. Why is it that Elliot Smith seems to capture the essence of our existence so perfectly? How do Shakespeare or DFW or Poe manage to write in a way that seems so innovative and incomparable? The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Pink Floyd, Michael Jackson, Prince, Tupac, Elvis, Fitzgerald, DeLillo, Scorsese, Hitchcock, Spielberg, Nolan, Mozart, Liszt, Chopin, Beethoven. It continues. It continues on and on, forever and ever. Men are the universal constant. Jesus himself. God always referred to as a “he”. A force so much larger than humanity is a man, consciously or subconsciously. We all know “history was written by men” but let’s not forget about everything else. 

I will never forget the time a friend (a man) marveled at my music listening habits once, telling me so sincerely: “You only listen to them (some kpop group I can’t bring myself to remember) because you think they’re attractive.” The shock on his face when I told him I had no clue what this particular group of men looked like was laughable. Sure there can be elements of attraction whenever you consume something. Watching a good movie and finding out the dude behind the camera is just your type. It’s a pleasant surprise. But you don’t go on to scour streaming sites for his films just because you think the guy’s attractive… You scour and scale because you have never seen a person use a camera like that. Write a song like that. Describe a feeling like that. He may even be the exact, feature for feature, opposite of your type. He may remind you of that man you wish more than anything to forget. But wow have you ever heard someone speak so eloquently? Have you ever seen anyone with such unique little ticks and habits? Have you ever heard a voice like that? And that attitude is simply… 

They are everywhere all the time. “The first to do this”, “The first to land here”, “The first to think of this”. 

I sit. I write things. I delete. I wonder why there aren’t more women in the things I consume. 

The terrible reality is, the male genius may not be a myth. It may very well be the truth. Maybe they are just that good. And it’s not that us women are utter shit. It’s not that we can’t write in awe-striking ways or convey our existence along the same vein as an Elliot Smith song. It’s more like we’re not allowed to. There are very certain things a woman should be. People flamed on Jennifer Lawrence recently after she admitted how proud she was for her role as a major female protagonist in popular culture following The Hunger Games movies. A studio exec had told her something along the lines of “men can’t relate to female stories.” She was determined to prove them wrong through the spirit of Katniss Everdeen. The internet-o-sphere lit flames under her bed after that interview. They pulled up all sorts of previous examples of “strong” and “independent” female characters that did it before her. The flames consumed her, the blame fell squarely on her shoulders because God forbid she give herself a little credit where credit is due. Everyone chose to ignore what the studio exec had said. 

Men are the geniuses always because they are allowed to be. They are allowed to sit in a studio for 3 days in a row, screaming demands in all directions until they make the perfect track, only to beat their wife and small child when they finally make an appearance back home. They are free to be raging alcoholics and avid drug users, writing down their life-shattering experiences for pages on end, and when they pass they will forever be memorialized as the tragedy we should’ve done more to protect. We will trust the Elvis biopic of a male genius into the hands of another male genius and milk 8 Oscar nominations from the results. We will similarly trust these men with the Marylin Monroe biopic fated to die a silent death and fade into the obscure of unfortunately shitty movies. Some man will confess on a forum for musicians that Alanis Morisette is his guilty pleasure because, naturally, she is something to be ashamed of, nevermind the quality of her music. I will continue to add song after song to my playlist, watch film after film, read book after book, learn fact after fact because those feelings are what I want from life. I want to be able to live it the way I desire. I dream of breaking free from expectations. “Woman” is a label held above my head at all times, that I wear proudly, but one that brings me great pain. Nothing I can do will subdue this feeling. I experience my freedom vicariously through all the men who are allowed to express their pain and suffering without fear of revolt or mockery, but I will always continue to dig through the pile for the female genius. The Ella Fitzgeralds, Donna Tarts, Cate Blanchetts, Mary Shellys, and The Wachowskis of the world. Our collective suffering knows little bounds. We are bonded together by it across the world. And we can also make those unimaginable, irreplicable, inherently important things. One day, the act of being a woman won’t be anything to be ashamed of.

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A Careful Analysis of Life

01/25/2023

“Do you ever get the feeling that people are incapable of not caring?”

I get the feeling all the time. I get the feeling as I’m walking into class and someone holds the door for me. I get it when others share their umbrella with me in the rain and they walk to my side of the car before going to theirs. I got it this morning when my professor looked me in the eyes while addressing my question. Care is not tangible in the same way a piece of toast is. It cannot be used as a form of currency at the grocery store. Yet it is one of the most essential parts of life: One of the realest aspects of our existence. Care is like a needle held centimeters from your iris. It is like the needle that mends your favorite blanket. 

It can really hurt so badly when you feel as though care is being withheld from you. In these instances, it’s you that starts to care. You hold yourself at this crippling level of scrutiny. You just want to know that someone cares. You fall in love with the idea of someone noticing your absence. At the same time your eyes can’t stop wandering to the person you want that care from. Your feet point towards them unconsciously. You find yourself with one shoe out of a conversation before it even starts, ready to bolt to that beacon of care as soon as it lights up. 

Maybe it’s like a week later and you’ll look back on a dinner you had where you kept stuffing too much food in your mouth at a time and suddenly you’re thinking, damn I probably looked so disgusting. And next time you eat you take it so slow because this time you really care about how the people outside perceive you. 

Sometimes you see something your friend would really love. Something they’d genuinely care for and your bank account isn’t exactly cushiony but you make it work anyways because you can’t help but care about what they care about. 

When that person in your life has a most unpleasant habit and you tell yourself that you don’t mind like a mantra in your mind. Of course you love them so unconditionally. Except for this condition. It shouldn’t matter but it does. You shouldn’t care but you do. 

That inconsolable fear buries itself in the pit of your stomach and it spreads itself throughout your body. Like this physical sense of fear. A debilitating fear that you will always be miserable. No matter what they say, or what is reasonable, or what is real, you just know you will be stuck in this way forever. People will make laps around you and eventually pass the finish line but for some reason you can’t move like that. You think very carefully about the things you could do. You might eventually, or maybe never. But you won’t do those things tonight, because maybe there’s a world moving around you and you know how much they care. The fear can make it really hard for you to care. But they care. 

He comes home with a heavy sigh from a job that you hate. You agreed to move here because you care. He trudges into the living room and sees two children sat in front of a TV with highly processed frozen meals in front of them on the floor. Meeting you in the kitchen, his voice starts low and tired and escalates up several rungs of emotion before he’s screaming at you, “don’t you care?”, and he dangles this like a guillotine above your neck. 

So you’re scrolling through pictures from some point in your life in the far past and you see their face staring back at you. You see yourself donning clothes and a haircut that now seems so distant. You know you would never wear that outfit now. You suddenly realize you don’t really know whether they would still be wearing theirs. Somewhere along the lines you stopped caring. But now you’re looking back on this picture and this point in your life and you wish you could convey to them somehow that, in this moment, you care. You care and they will never know. You wonder if they ever care about you in these undetectable ways. 

Care is a continuous feeling we share and the most useful tool we can use. Happiness, sadness, emptiness, hate, kindness, these are all side effects of carefulness. It is a sort of emotional biology. It is a fact of living. Perhaps you feel underappreciated or unwelcome right now, but there will always be someone out there with a type of care you crave. We live our lives on a care to care basis and once your time comes, you should die knowing that people cared, because people truly are incapable of not caring.