L

Glottorhea, basically.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

It's really something.
My memory is fading and with it goes who I was
when I was confident and well read
when I knew the names of key philosophers
and kept up in conversations that made reference to them.

Maybe I was never as smart as I imagine myself to have been.
Maybe I never really did feel more intensely than I do now.

I like to imagine that I once had a great love
and that all others will pale in comparison.
It makes the warmth I feel for my partner seem
like a more acceptable feeling from which to build a life.

My hindsight is generous, perhaps,
but my forgetfulness is a blessing when coupled with my sense of hope.
It makes me think I have something inside me
that I can return to, something great I can be again.

At my worst, though, it makes me
cocky. And mean. And desperate.

"I'm sure she was a very smart fourteen-year-old,"
is what they'll say about me.

posted by L # 22:14 0 comments

Sunday, July 17, 2011

The boys saw it coming

The moment he told them

he was with me, the alarm bells

sounded

and our friends told him,

stop.

think.

someone should warn you.

They were right, of course.

I left him quickly, and went back

to life the next day, while

he fought to stop wondering,

did I imagine the spark

beneath her words

that draws me?

He did. But so have others.

The spark,

by any other name

is a sadness or lament or

self-loathing.

I use it to trick men into thinking I'm real.

posted by L # 09:04 1 comments

Sunday, July 10, 2011

A lament

I want to start writing again. Or something. I may actually just want to start reading again and am subconsciously deciding to shame myself into doing so by writing.

I sometimes think that in many ways, I'm worse now than I once was. I have a story to tell about that.

It was January or February - I had recently moved into my current apartment - and I was with my friend John at a bar by my place. He and I have known each other for a few years and we occasionally speak candidly with one another, which is a rarity, at least for me.

Now, I once wrote about someone I met who I likened to you. There have been a few men who I've mistakenly thought were like you, but they've all turned out to be manipulative assholes and this was no exception. When I met this person, we spoke for hours about books and he told me he knew I was hiding who I really was. He commended me on the quality of the front I put up. I've since learned that this is a trick; I hope to never fall for it again. Kids, if anyone ever claims to know you better than you know yourself, run.

The next time I ran into this man I didn't know how to act. I had, hardly knowing him, introduced him to a part of myself that I didn't want others to find. I had tried to write to him to explain that and to tell him that he had disarmed me by reminding me of you, but he hadn't responded. I didn't know what he would do. He cornered me, away from everyone else, and started to lay into me. He told me he didn't like me, and he brought up all the insecurities I had confessed to him to tell me why.

This happened the next time we met as well. And the next.

At the bar, John told me that he had noticed the way this man had been coming after me. He added that the man had recently shared my messages to him with our group of friends, laughing at my stupidity and blind trust.

John said that the group had decided that this was unacceptable. They decided to protect me, and if necessary, to choose me over my attacker. But this wasn't what I wanted.

I hope human beings are all entitled to an ungrounded belief or two, because I had at least this one: if we could understand each other's intentions - the meanings behind the words - we would love each other. Or more specifically: if I succeed in being understood, I will be loved.

I wanted him to understand the way you did. I wanted to feel loved so I reached out to an angry and broken man who reminded me of you in your most miserable state and treated him like he could calm my turbulent mind. Of course he reacted violently. Of course I became the victim. Of course the cavalry would come.

My friends don't realize that I knew, or likely should have figured, that this would happen. The effects were due either to my intention or to my neglect to think things through.

I feel that years ago I wouldn't have been capable of such manipulation. My conscious would have stopped me. My sense of shame would have led me to pull out of the group. Something would have clicked.

That feeling is probably wrong. I have always been like this. I may always be like this, no matter how hard I try to become self-aware and to fight it. And I can't effectively tell John to stop thinking of my role in the conflict as passive; I'll only martyrize myself further. I can only write these words in hopes that someone finds them and understands.

posted by L # 21:27 1 comments

Friday, November 05, 2010

Exhaustion.

This is conceivably the way the rest

of my adult life will go.

It's distinctly unpoetic.

This one doesn't get a number.

posted by L # 18:24 1 comments

Sunday, October 17, 2010

The Judgement of Thamus

It seems silly

how we think that making sounds at one another

is a good way to pass the time.

I'll admit it's something that brings us closer.

There's beauty in that kind of communication.

But we've taken it way too far.

We've fetishized the sound. It wasn't always only sound.

There was meaning once upon a time.

We forgot our roots, as we sometimes do.

The part that disturbs me more than anything else

is that when writing, I enjoy the clack of the keys

more than the letters appearing on the screen.

posted by L # 21:50 0 comments

Saturday, October 16, 2010

#60

He's angry

and has been for a long time,

he says.

It doesn't sublimate

into tears

or fade away or

whatever it is that happens to me

He wears these black

jackets and complains

about every shitty thing he sees

in this violent city

(it's a lot to take in)

and he won't smile

until he catches me bullshitting

and remembers that I'm not

someone who he needs to take seriously.

He also smiles at innuendo.

posted by L # 20:25 0 comments

Sunday, October 03, 2010

#59

I'm standing outside

watching someone I used

to want to know me

smoke a cigarette

and he turns to me and says

he likes lots of things about me except

that he knows I hate myself

and as much as I drink and laugh

and live the dream and that,

he sees through me

and so can everyone else

and I sure have met a lot of people.

He once told me that everyone will lie to me,

that he won't.

I remember someone else telling me that

and the pain of wondering

if it's true.

What kind of thing is that to say to a person?

Fuck it

I'm staying

I'll wear a skirt to work

I'll drink coffee when I feel tired

Late at night I'll pull a notebook out of its hiding place

to keep a record of all the lies I tell

without regret.

posted by L # 14:43 2 comments

L