without my glasses, I see photographs
close to my nose is sharp and defined
and the rest fades off into the distance
and I say,
how have I not looked at things this way before?
and this morning, charlie speaks:
life comes fucked up with strings attached
and the porno girls all arch their backs
and the streets breathe steam after a summer's rain
sometimes the sweetness
can conquer the shame
and the difference between writing and typing, that kristin quoted to me once, becomes clear...
tomorrow might feel completely different but this is today.
I have just spent a number of years - years - internalizing and editing and holding back. not writing and being numb to it. fulfilling the need to create with putting my yogurt containers in order, in an exact straight line, by date of expiration. there's a bleeding in that, but not like this. and recently the shift has come, and now I'm bleeding all over the place. mostly for the good. of notebooks and things taped to the walls and here, needing to write, plagued by not sleeping since about six am when the end of the music awoke me with a start and I saw a letter that needed reading.
so in my fumbling around, it's hard not to show my insides to strangers. they're spilling out, like enless rain into a paper cup. on top of bleeding, there's emoting, and some occasional vomiting. and while it's where it needs to be, I'm where I need to be, with all of this open and free, I've forgotten about the other side of magic for a few weeks here. I'm creating, I'm writing, there's all these wondrous moments and conversations - but what of the mystery, the wondering, the thing that keeps you up late at night asking what if and maybe and wouldn't it be crazy, is he wondering too... I've ripped open my scars and my journals and I've left nothing to the imagination. which, as we know, is the key to it all, this imagining and dreaming and other world that we exist in.
we. because I am an artist, and I know this now.
in these early hours, listening to words I've never heard before, I am struck by these thoughts: that the bleeding is for the art. and it needs to be... not contained, but just redirected. not edited at all, but just given the forum in which to flourish. because god help me, I am done editing. except to check for spelling and stuff. so in a high speed downshift off we run to the notebooks, the paint colors, the festive clothing and the daydreaming. it's the secret smile in my notebook, it's the look behind my eyes, it's the craving and the yearning and the churning that I'm not used to, or more accurately that I felt for so long but had no fire with which to turn it into anything. and that is not to be projected onto a person, for that leaves holes in the art. it is the art, and needs to be respected as such. not that the persons themselves cannot become the art, but... it's like the art is the electricity and from it come these outlets, literally like plugs in the walls, in which to light things. like boys and mix tapes. but those very things are not the art, even though they are. dig?
is this a public forum for explanations and apologies? I don't know. it's whatever the fuck I want it to be. it's my site and after all, these are only words. I've been putting so much into the flesh that my notebooks are starving to know every last little thing. I'm left staring at these gaping wounds, looking up and saying how did I get here, just in these last few days, this was not what I meant to say at all... but then it was...
so here's to the dreaming, to the magic and the mystery. to all the things left unsaid and the volumes that are spoken from catching his eyes from across the room, and the mix tapes that come as a result of all this madness. here's to holding up our radios in the rain because our own words would fail so miserably.
and here's to me, finally free, tearing off the bandages and tying off the tourniquet with a rip of my teeth. god save my notebooks. they're going to need all the help they can get.
editor's note: when they really get to know you they will run by pedro the lion is my new favorite warm breeze driving in the summertime song. go listen.
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