Issue Four
No more dates. No more subscriptions. Timeless.
As you meander through this zine, contemplate the differences
between art, pornography, erotica and plain and simple diagrams.
What determines what?
Think about where you stand in your life and where you are
going. Take heed to the wisdom imparted within. Re-evaluate
your life. See things through other people's eyes. Ask
yourself questions. What are the most important things in the
universe to you? What do you do when you have something to do?
When you have nothing to do? Perhaps you should make a list.
Masturbate. After all, that's what some of the writings in here
are for. It relieves stress, relaxes you, and is good for your
health.
Finally, smile more. A smile and a friendly hello to a stranger
each day will make this world a happier and more peaceful place.
Peace.
Authors To Read
Anaïs Nin, Henry Miller, D.H. Lawrence, Goethe, Li Yu,
Thomas Pynchon, Robert Anton Wilson, Poe, Confucius, Jean
Paul Satre
No more peeping though keyholes! No more masturbating in the dark! No more
public confessions! Unscrew the doors from their jambs! I want a world where
the vagina is represented by a crude, honest slit, a world that has feeling for
bone and contour, for raw, primary colors, a world that has fear and respect
for its animal origins. I'm sick of looking at cunts all tickled up, disguised,
deformed, idealized. Cunts with nerve ends exposed. I don't want to watch young
virgins masturbating in the privacy of their boudoirs or biting their nails or
tearing their hair or lying ona bed full of bread crumbs for a whole chapters.
I want Madagascan funeral poles, with animal upon animal and at the top Adam
and Eve, and Eve with a crude honest slit between the legs. I want
hermaphrodites who are real hermaphrodites, and not make-believes walking
around with an atrophied penis or a dried-up cunt. I want a classic purity,
where dung is dung and angels are angels.
- Henry Miller
(original list): minature golf, walking through the woods, colour, draw
portraits of each other, kiss play exquisite corpse, watch a movie, go play on
a playground, explore unknown territory, interview people, give random people
surveys, write surveys to give people, play word games, hug, play cards, write
letters to people picked out of the phone book (crank letters?), lie on our
backs dreaming, play tag, race on our bicycles (whats the point), play house,
climb a tree, do gymnastics in a tree, walk, talk touch, smell, live (my we're
getting philosophical here!), dance, frisbee.
(additions): call telephone booths and talk to the people who answer, call
customer service departments and chat, play mind games.
just let me alone
to live my life
along to live my life
i dont care
about your political views
please dont care about mine
what does it matter
to you
what i am
i leave you alone
wont you do the same for me
let me live my life
without your religion
without your morals
without your issues
i have my own
and i leave you alone
i am who i am
please dont try to change me
and i dont really care who you are
as long as you let me alone.
- a poet
Thistle and Cornflower
10:49
i scrutinize
stare holes into the free poster on my closet door
drink in the colors
shades with names like thistle and cornflower
why not blue
or pink?
or no names at all?
crayola categorizes the colors.
you...
me...
we categorize the people
black...mulberry
white...jungle green
slut...fuschia
prude...taupe
trendy...lavender
punk...cerulean
who determines
what is fuschia?
do you know?
do you have a favorite color?
swirling flowing into oneness
unity rainbow harmony
maybe they're
tired concepts but
please
no thistle
no cornflower
down with crayola!
wait...
i overreact.
but the simple...
the stupid...
the ridiculous...
can be profound
in a convoluted...
perplexing...
perverted
sort of way.
do you have a favorite color?
swirling flowing into oneness
no thistle
no cornflower
down with crayola!
wait...
i'm a hypocrite
my favorite color
is
purple.
-cathy heard
you sit there in you black than black [clothes]
smiling in your fit of depression
your hairs a mess
your so depressed
you pull out your blades and stare
listening to your angst ridden songs
of death and of love and of death
reaching down the darkest paths
of your mind
can you here?
i am here
to help you out
into the sunlight
but its too bright
so just slit your wrists and die
i dont care anymore
youve pushed me away
once too many times
and i dont love you anymore
ill see you in hell, my love
- a poet
MENAGE A TROIS
TWO MEN BED YOU LYING IN BETWEEN DARKNESS AND A HAND TOUCHES YOUR
NECK SLOWLY CARESSING A SPIDER TOUCH YOUR LEG NOW BOTH LEGS LIGHT
TICKLING AROUSING GENTLE BRUSH THROUGH YOUR HAIR A KISS ON THE
LIPS YOUR HAND YOUR FINGERS IN HIS MOUTH NOW TWO WHILE HANDS
CARESS YOUR SIDES YOUR STOMACH YOUR LEGS YOUR BREASTS AS A WETNESS
ENVELOPES YOUR TOES AND TINGLE RUNS UP AND DOWN YOUR LEG AND TWO
PEOPLE SUCKING ON YOUR NIPPLES LITTLE BITES NOW ONE ON YOUR NECK
AS HANDS ARE EVERYWHERE ACROSS YOUR BLIND FACE FEEL EVERY FINGER
WHILE TWO HANDS RUN DOWN EACH ARM AND ONE RUBS YOUR STOMACH A DEEP
KISS NIBBLE ON EACH EAR GENTLE BLOWING AS TWO HANDS MASSAGE YOUR
BREASTS SLOWLY AND THEN THE NIPPLES AND THE NERVE AND SOMEONES
SUCKING ON YOUR FINGERS AGAIN AND YOU NEVER KNOW WHO WHO IN THE
BLACKNESS GIVES YOU YOUR PLEASURE AND YOU LOVE ONE AND HE LOVES
HIS BEST FRIEND AS YOU FEEL THE HANDS MASSAGE CARESS STROKE YOUR
ENTIRE BODY FACE HAIR LEGS ARMS FINGERS STOMACH FEET BREASTS THE
PLEASURE IS EVERYWHERE AND HE KISSES YOU AND YOU HOLD ONTO HIM
BECAUSE YOU LOVE HIM.
Aunty Em, It's a Twister
The sands fall down the hourglass
And they seem to go slower with each passing hour
I sit and wait, one by one, grain after grain,
heartbeat after heartbeat, I feel times presence.
Escape? Peace? No, there is no escape
Trapped in forward time with everything symmetric
Each grain a crystal, each crystal pristine, each
Shape the same, every time heart beats so quickly
Yet each shape is very different as with everything
A grain of sand is only at the will of the wind
Time...dammit, why do the hours go so fast, yet too slow
I bit off a fingernail with each passing hour
Silently awaiting your return, the feel of your skin
The sound of your voice
Yet dreading the touch, the sound,
The memory of what you once were
So now I sit by the window watching the leaves all blow away
For the hurricane rages on, and now I see
Poor Mrs. Danoby get blown away
A scarecrow we made together is one we shall never see again
I remember that scarecrow, I made it with you
When you were you, when you hadn't changed
When Mrs. Danoby still existed
But now I must leave, not by choice, but nature becons
My room was just blown off the house
Wait for me, darling. In the world where
You become another you, wait for me
No more excuses, wait for me, Please, wait,
Please love me, please remember, wait....
Lisa, Leslie, Trevor, Prendi
IDEA
take out a piece of paper (preferably lined)
write a line of a poem somewhere on the page
pass it to the next person
continue until the poem is finished
EXPERIMENT
write a story/poem
in which each word
begins with the same letter
as the previous word ended.
|
A soft, deep space by my chest and stomach which makes it difficult
to breathe freely without my head getting swimmy; without my breath
catching a knot inside of me and sticking there for a moment.
A wonderful, empty pain that sits in all corners of me; the mind
and heart corners feeling it most distinctively, it plucks at the
you nerves like a child pulling blades of grass from a newly mowed
lawn. The cut green smell in the air invigorates her, at the same
time it makes her struggle for breath.
My hand over the grass I reach through it, feel the cool, moist dirt
and squeeze it into my hand, trying not to think of coming inside
and having to scrub the mud from beneath my fingernails at dinner
time.
I think of how the dirt must taste, how it would sit in my mouth,
how I could switch it over my tongue, the brown stains it could
leave on small, white teeth.
The child looks up at the sun, smiling gently into its Springtime
heat, it is caressing her face, she feels a part of nature. Thoughts
of you, thoughts tickling at the corners, your warmth, your body
falling softly yet insistently over mine, your lips, the warm burst
of a Spring day dawning, the sun falling brilliantly over us.
Digging her bare feet into the ground. The child is still smiling.
Tears fall somewhere, a soft sweet voice tells me, it might not
always be this perfect, I ask why you had to remind me.
Thinking, shivering, by myself in my room, wondering, as the sun
begins to set, as the child is called inside to take a bath, to
purify herself against the already pure Spring day, if I really
know you. Wondering if I could already love you. Wondering if you
feel the same way.
I pull the window shade, it snaps open again. I think I see you
walking by, the soles of your leather shoes slapping the concrete
sidewalk. The child's mother pulls her into the house. I realize
it is not you, I realize that what I feel is only a wish, what I
see is only a vision.
You lay a kiss upon my forehead. Can this be? I thought I'd lost
a love so true, but now your embrace seems so like home, I wonder
how I could have mistaken anything besides it for true love to
begin with.
Melting underneath you, like a flower turning its face toward the
sun, like the child stretching in the sunlight, I smile. You pull
me closer to you. I run my fingers over the cool glass of the
window, watch silently the night fall over me, waiting to see
you again.
- lisa shapiro
a theory of bookburning
there is a flame here
trapped somewhere in this library
hemmed in by musty volumes
bound and rebound
the fire is dancing in it's catalouged space
hidden somewhere
isolated amongst dusty theories
and pedantic criticism
find it and throw it open
free the flame into the dry air
ignite this place
and all these words--
wake the world by setting it ablaze.
- jeremy p. bushnell
By the time I had
checked my watch
I was already imprisoned.
It was here, where
the flowers grow
that left me bewildered.
I could have stopped
but my hunger led me
to the pleasure cactus.
So when I touched it,
it touched me also.
How was I to know.
My dreams we shattered
much like glass, yet
only a mirror would see.
Can I borrow your watch
so as to know what your
time is like, but never
would I ask of your
time fir then I would
tell you what to watch.
And yet if we both
watch the time, neither
of us will have a good
time; only endless
pauses to count and
file and that is work.
And work is for those
on the clock.
And we all know the
clock is wrong.
matthew price
|
I want firsthand knowledge of everything, not fiction, intimate experience
only. Whatever takes place, even a crime I read about, I can't take an
interest in, because I already knew the criminal. I may have talked with him
all night at a bar. He had confessed what he intended to do. When Henry wants
me to go and see an actress in a play, she was a friend of mine at school. I
lived at the home of the painter who suddenly became a celebrity. I am always
inside where it first happens. I loved a revolutionist, I nursed his discarded
mistress who later committed suicide. I don't care for films, newspapers,
'reportages,' the radio. I only want to be involved while it is being lived.
- June
SENSUAL:I:TOUCH:YOU:ENERGY:FLOWS:YOUR:HAND:WARM:SWEATY:
BUT:TACTILE:FEEL:TOUCH:YOUR:LEG:SMOOTHE:SHAVED:WHY:
SENSUAL:NYLONS:PLEASURABLE:AGITATION:AS:I:CARESS:SLOWLY:
SENSUALLY:YOU:TOUCH:MY:FACE:MY:HAIR:WANT:TO:FEEL:WE:ARE:
PEOPLE:WE:NEED:TO:TOUCH:YOU:PRESSES:AGAINST:ME:WE:HUG:
WARMTH:A:BODY:SOMETHING:NEED:TO:HOLD:A:SPARK:MORE:YOUR:
HIPS:I:FEEL:SHAPELY:NOW:I:THINK:I:MAY:LIKE:YOU:
but i have a *real* problem with your definition of peace in life as
lack of angst. i think that that sort of peace would be sort of a
permanent mind-numbness. i don't want to be permanently blind to my
worry. and i don't want to believe that the world is a basically
wonderful benign place. if it is, then my life would make even less
sense than it does now. i don't see how anyone who's ever watched a
newscast or read a paper can even presume to say this is a basically
cheerful, good world. i don't want to believe that. i don't want to turn
off my brain forever. life does suck and is unfair and bad things
happen to good people all the time and no belief system will protect
you from tragedy.
but what does keep me alive is angst, strangely enough. it challenges
me. i don't wanna let the bad guys win. i want to live my life in
beauty, which sounds really cheesy but means to me that i want to get
past the shit that is the basic material of life and get on with
*living*. i want to interact with other people and i want my existence
to have meant something more than x pounds of food and liters of oxygen
consumed, y pounds of byproducts released.
i want passion. i want to consume and be consumed. i want to feel, even
if feeling means being in pain a lot. the painful parts are horrible,
and sometimes i think i'm going to die, but when the ecstasy hits, it's
real and amazing and i wouldn't miss it for the world. turning off my
brain and ceasing to think and dropping into a warm gray world of
religious certainty would be worse than death. hell isn't flames; it's
thick, soupy fog.
sine | deb
I gave blood.
Again.
The tube wrapped over my arm several times
before it led down to the blood-bag
hooked to my table.
I could feel the heat of my own blood gushing
through the tube.
heather truelove
|
September 10, 1992
School today was pretty boring. I'm gradually getting more upset about the
Eng AP situation. I'll definitely set up a conference tomorrow.
He was about 45 minutes late to pick me up... at least I had some time to
put the photos up in my locker.
That girl and I had a conversation in the hallway re: the hetero scum of
Troy High. We kept it veiled, of course, "I don't know WHY they won't talk to
me"... then a giggle. I hope she doesn't try to sleep with me. I have no
interest in her whatsoever.
He got there and we went straight to His apartment in the All American City.
He was sucking on my fingers and caressing my inner thighs. I decided He was
foreshadowing, I didn't know the half of it.
When we got into His "hole", we sat on the couch and started necking. Then
I got up to go to the bathroom. I took a HUGE shit: it's wonderful scent
floated about the entire room as I forced it out of my asshole. I finished up
and glided into the next room. As I was approaching His bedroom, I saw Him
standing in the doorway waiting for me. In His hand He held a black chiffon
scarf. We moved to bed where he took the dominant position and started pulling
my clothes off. First He unbuttoned my dress so it fell off to my sides. He
told me I looked like a superhero with the fishnet bodysuit and the cape that
had been my dress.
When I was naked, He gently pushed me down onto the bed there. He
spread-eagled my legs and pushed my arms to the far corners. He then tied the
scarf around my head, "Can you see?" "No." I felt the cold metal of the chains
go around each of my wrists and ankles very slowly and surely. He is a very
powerful man and He knows how to do it. I was then completely immobile, and I
loved it. The sound of His zipper broke through thoughts of the pain my ankles
felt from the tightness of the chains.
He then spread himself over me like satin. I could feel His hard penis
caressing my inner thigh with an intensity His hand had not had in the car. I
felt the urgency... every time it would inch toward my ever-moistening vagina.
Every time He moved, to kiss my neck, to make love with his tongue to my ear,
I felt as though I was exploding with fluids. Every ocean donated half of it's
being to lubricate my crotch!
The woods eats the woman and dumps her honey-body in the mud. Her dress
floats down the well and it assumes the shape of the body of a little girl. I
recognise that girl. She stumbled in sometime last loneliness. But I could not
stand to touch her now, my one and onlyness.
I felt His breath move slowly down, away from my breasts which He had suckled
and fondled until He knew I could not stand the pleasure a moment longer. He
moved past my belly-button and over my shaven pubic hair. He concentrated on
the crease between my leg and mucus membrane for a long time, then He finally
plunged His flexed tongue in between my engorged lips and stroked my clit. He
sucked and stroked and pulled and stroked and sucked and sent me writhing in
pleasure for a hald an hour at least. As I moved, the chains slipped tighter
and tighter around me.
The scarf slipped down a little, allowing me to see myself on the ceiling.
The pleasure was building and building, like a tower of multi-colored blocks,
straight up to the reflection. I saw myself come to a shuddering orgasm, my
mouth opened by a scream, my body bound in chains.
- A. G.
HUG:ME:AS:I:DO:YOU:PLEASURE:TONIGHT:I:GIVE:A:HAND:
A:HUG:BURSTING:IN:MY:ARMS:TONIGHT:I:GIVE:TO:YOU:
CARESS:ALONG:THE:LEG:BACKRUB:SLOWLY:GENTLY:TOP:
BOTTOM:RUBBING:SPIDER:FINGERS:TINGLING:EROTIC:
PASSION:EXPLODES:YOUR:BREASTS:SO:FULL:MASSAGE:MORE:
A:NIPPLE:FLOATING:IN:MY:MOUTH:TO:SUCK:AND:EXPLORE:
FEEL:MAKING:SOFTER:ARE:YOU:WET:YET:I:RUB:YOUR:
STOMACH:SLOWLY:FEEL:IT:HANDS:DRIFTING:UP:AND:DOWN:
YOUR:BODY:BARELY:TOUCHING:LEGS:HIPS:TORSO:BREASTS:
AGAIN:MASSAGE:LEGS:SLOWLY:CARESSING:EXPLOSION:ON:
THE:KNEE:A:TOUCH:ALONG:THE:THIGH:YOUR:SKIRT:PUSHED:
UP:HOW:SEXY:YOU:LOOK:TONIGHT:PLEASURE:AND:YOU:A:
FINGER:BRUSHES:AGAINST:YOUR:PUSSY:A:SHIVER:THROUGH:
YOUR:BODY:THEN:SLOWLY:EROTIC:MOVEMENT:THE:FINGER:
BEGINS:TO:RUB:ELECTRICITY:IN:THE:AIR:YOU:LEAN:BACK:
SUDDENLY:THE:FINGER:ENTERS:AND:ANOTHER:RUBBING:
INSIDE:YOUR:WALLS:YOUR:VAGINA:STROKING:FORWARD:
ALONG:THE:INSIDE:PASSION:IGNITES:FASTER:MORE:
VIGOURIOUSLY:YOUR:JUICE:BEGINS:TO:FLOW:MORE:NOISES:
THE:PASSION:JUICE:DRIPS:DOWN:MY:HAND:I:COME:DOWN:
SMELL:IT:AROUSING:THE:HAND:COMES:OUT:THE:TONGUE:
GOES:IN:DRINKING:SO:DEEP:OF:YOU:SO:BEAUTIFUL:
TASTING:MORE:I:SUCK:THEN:THE:HAND:AGAIN:THRUSTING:
IN:AND:OUT:I:RUN:YOUR:WALLS:MY:THUMB:OUTSIDE:
EXCITING:THE:CLITORIS:NOW:FOUR:FINGERS:INSIDE:
PASSION:AND:EXCITEMENT:I:THRUST:MYSELF:EXCITIED:I:
WANT:TO:COME:FOR:YOU:TO:COME:I:TOUCH:THE:HEART:OF:
THE:FLOWER:AND:SLIDE:MY:FINGERS:AROUND:IT:AND:OUT:
AGAIN:MORE:YOUR:VAGINA:OUTSIDE:I:RUB:YOUR:LIPS:
UNDER:THEN:THE:CLITORIS:AND:MORE:YOUR:EYES:ARE:SHUT:
YOUR:MOANING:HAS:BEEN:GOING:ON:FOREVER:I:WANT:YOU:
AROUSED:BY:YOUR:JUICES:THE:NOISES:YOU:MAKE:THE:
MOANING:I:WANT:YOU:TO:COME:I:SLIDE:MY:FINGERS:AROUND:
AND:AROUND:MAKING:YOU:MORE:AROUSED:MORE:THEN:
SUDDENLY:YOUR:BODY:TENSES:YOU:GRASP:MY:BODY:FIRMLY:
MY:PENIS:IS:HARD:YOUR:CUNT:IS:WET:AS:YOU:COME:IN:MY:
HANDS:I:SLOW:DOWN:A:LIGHT:MASSAGE:AND:THEN:DRIFTING:
TO:NOTHING:I:BEND:DOWN:TO:DRINK:OF:YOUR:ELIXIR:AND:
WE:LIE:TOGETHER:IN:EACH:OTHERS:ARMS:YOUR:PLEASURE:
TONIGHT:I:LOVE:YOU:
|
"glass jaw, alcohol whore
cardboard cutout lying on the floor
lame-brain's drunk again
stupid dum-dum plumb cold insane
i've been worse and i've been better
human seesaw to the letter
oooo, it makes me feel so bad, so nice..."
pop will eat itself, "wake up, time to die"
alcohol is my best friend and worst enemy.
i'm not a classic alcoholic. that would be easier, i think. if you
get drunk every night, you can point to it and say "look, problem" and
it makes sense and you can decide what to do.
nothing in my life has ever been clear-cut. i live in a shadow-ridden
ambiguous world, and most of the time i don't trust my perception of
reality. objectivity is a joke, anyway (where do you stand to look at
objective reality?) and facts and perceptions are slippery, fluid,
sliding through my brain like glass beads coated in oil. when i think
they've arranged themselves into a pattern, someone tilts the edge of
my mental table and they roll into another configuration.
so am i an alcoholic? good question. i play chicken with the prospect:
sometimes for no apparent reason i buy alcohol and get really drunk,
alone. but it's never done seriously, if that makes sense. i crave the
drunkenness, i spose, but there's a spectator in my head saying "you
don't really mean this. you're in control. nice try, though."
so if that were the extent of my love-hate relationship with the
stuff, i'd say no, i'm not an alcoholic. more like a melodrama addict
who uses alcohol as a prop to add realism to the scenes.
but if that were the extent of it, i'd not be hating myself for last
weekend. or the weekend before. or the parties before that. i'd not
have vivid memories of lying on the ground outside a friend's house,
puking my guts out and wishing i were dead. or of standing in the
rain, throwing up over the railing of some steps somewhere. of having
people tell me what i've done and not being able to remember it.
the blackouts are the worst, i think. knowing that something happened,
being told that you were walking around, apparently functioning, but
having no idea *who* was in control of your body or where those things
you said came from. lots of rage and pain, sometimes, welling up from
somewhere i can't find sober and confusing hell out of those present.
i don't know why i do it. i go to parties, someone hands me a beer, i
feel better. or i go to a party and look at the beer, and i know i'd
feel better if i just had one. only after one, i know i'll lose the
buzz unless i have another. and then i forget that i didn't want to
drink, and a couple of hours later, i'm gone. that's how it's been
described to me, too: "you leave, and i don't like the person who's in
there." so i can even claim that it's not my fault, whatever happens.
it wasn't me, it was this ethanol stranger.
the total loss of protections, inhibitions, tact, dignity. i hate it.
but at the same time, it's safe. i can feel all these scary painful
emotions that lurk in my brain only i don't feel them. they get out, i
don't suffer. until the next day. then i piece together what happened
and vow not to do it again. and i don't, at least not for a month or
two, until i'm at a party and someone give me a beer, and i get a nice
buzz...
but it doesn't always happen. sometimes i have three or four beers,
chat, laugh, be sociable, go home. sometimes i'm not stressed in other
parts of my life and i'm happy with the world and i can drink and
control it and the universe is kind. i don't think i've had bad
incidents more than three or four times this year.
i don't *want* to be an alcoholic, be told i can't escape into a
bottle. i don't want to have to fix this. i don't want to deal. it's
not affecting me too much. yet.
not an alcoholic, but the phrase alcohol whore feels so apt.
--
sine | deb
what this all means, i have no clue.
I pick up your hand. It is relaxed, dry and smoothe. I feel the
weight of it in my palm. I turn it over and my thumb caresses its
back. I squeeze it tightly. Not painfully, but firmly. I look at the
confused look on your face. Your eyes search mine for a reason. They
find none. This is the test of faith. This is the test of trust.
Three minutes ago I sat down at your table, a virtual stranger. We
have met before, but not with words. Sidelong glances from across
a busy cafe fortelling of a friendship to occur. Mesmerised by the
other's personality, it was only time before we met. Now is the
time and this is the test of trust.
"Will you have sex with me tonight?" The words shatter into silence.
The test has begun and there is no turning back. Your hand twitches.
Reflexes activate, tension ignites, your hand pulls. My grip
remains firms and your hand stays in mine. You stop pulling but
your hand remains tense. Your reaction was expected. But you did
not twist and turn and pull fiercely away. I smile. I am playing
with your mind. Testing it.
"Or would you rather fuck right now, right here?" Again tension. A
fear spreads across your face. Confusion rampants your mind. My
motives blur in your eyes. You can see the way your eyes move,
you do not know what I want, what I think. But your hand remains
in mine. Your eyes flit to it. Debating whether to struggle.
Release yourself from my grip. But you do not. You look me in
the eyes.
"Yes, right here, right now. Let's do it." I stare in your eyes.
Your gaze becomes fierce. You do not wish me to see through
the foggy glaze. But I know what you have done, what you are doing.
The test is over and you have passed. There is nothing more to
say. I smile.
"Nevermind."
It becomes an effort to force oneself to write. To force oneself to create, to
paint, to do. One must have a lot of balls to grab the bull by the horn and
challenge the world. I've challenged the world, yes, but I've crept back into
my shell. I must learn to challenge everything. Like the woman who sits at the
table writing. You want to get to know her, but you sit here quietly alone. You
devise plans to introduce yourself. You picture it in your mind. You may even
get up and start walking towards her. But inevitably you keep on walking past.
She never meets you. You never meet her. The opportunity is gone and only
regret lingers. More people regret what they haven't done in life than what
they have. To try at least is something. Failure is a lesson. But if you never
try, you are left with nothing. Simply nothing.
a room. surrounded by four walls. painted white. and no door.
a man. pacing through the room. lost. alone. afraid. there is no one
to turn to in isolation. the only one youll find is yourself. and you
can never get away from that.
an hour in this room. just an hour. it drives a man insane. four
walls. painted white. no door. just a room.
eight corners. four walls. a floor. and a ceiling. everything white. it
drives a man insane. pacing the floor. waiting.
waiting for what. its just an hour. sixty minutes. three thousand six
hundred seconds. one twenty-fourth of a day. one hundred sixty-
eighth of a week. waiting.
a man. pacing through the room. his clothes are white. his skin is
white. though he thinks it might have been painted this colour.
waiting. pacing. examining the four walls. eight corners. ceiling.
and floor. all perfectly smooth. emitting light. white light. making
everything seem white. or was it white to begin with.
hes been counting his paces. five. six. seven. only he stops every
once in a while and loses count. then he starts again. what comes
after five.
when alone with yourself you have no one to turn to. and no one to
turn away from. finding yourself only gets you lost. and theres no
one to help you find your way out again.
it drives a man insane. pacing the floor. waiting. five minutes. six
years. seven centuries. space is timeless. so whats an hour. but
sixty minutes. three thousand twenty-three seconds. one sixteenth
of a day. or two hundred ninetieth of a week.
no colour. everything is white. was there every such a thing as
colour. or was it something i dreamt. i cant quite remember
anymore. everything is white. or maybe its blue. i cant quite
remember anymore.
you start wondering about your past. alone in a room. pacing. in
the dark.
you remember when you were a child and got lost in a department
store. or was it the zoo. department store. something like a
grocery store. or. or. or.
one foot follows in front of the other. ive named them right and
wrong. wrong always goes first. then i make it right. wrong. right.
wrong. right. wrong. right. then i turn. thats the difficult part.
a room. surrounded by six walls. painted white. and no door.
pacing back and forth. one hour. painted white. right. wrong. door.
im trying to remember if it was my past i was remembering. or my
future. i cant really tell because i dont remember which memories
came first. i wonder if im growing up or down. up. down. what are
those things.
pacing. you have to concentrate when you do it. i like to count the
steps as i go. one. two. three. four. five. seven. right. ten. what
comes next. stop and start again. one. three. four. five. six. eight.
eight. eight. damn.
the walls are green. for some reason. my skin too. i remember
once painting it a tan colour. but i cant remember why. or what
colour that was even. too much green. six walls. no door.
walking through the room. pacing. why dont i walk on one of the
other walls. i quite cant remember anymore. walking. why am i
here. i cant quite remember anymore.
one hour. whats that. something with minutes. five of them. maybe
ten. but i dont remember what a minute is so thats useless.
eighteen years ago i was somewhere else. but i cant quite
remember where anymore.
something about a past. someone told me i had one. i never
believed him. everywhere you turn you find yourself staring back.
alone.
alone. six walls. what do they call it again. broom. one broom. six
walls. and something else.
alone. how can i be alone. everyone in the broom is here. and i am
that. i am not alone. not alone at all.
the broom. i dont know why im here. what this is. ive stopped
pacing. i lost count and then forgot how. standing. or sitting.
whatever its called. here in this broom.
i feel a thumping. its slowing. afraid. if i knew what fear was. the
broom is changing colour. darkness.
one last question. is my hour up yet.
They say religion is a cructch. They say drugs are a crutch. They say sex is
a crutch. Inevitably they say anything that gives you pleasure is a crutch.
Why face the music if you enjoy it much better with your back turned? What's
this thing called reality anyway? Any why should I even admit it exists?
Life is a series of diversions intended to make you forget about life.
Reality is depressing. Only when you ignore it are you ever happy.
What is love? It's something that makes you forget completely about the
world around you. You and the one or thing you love become the only things in
the universe.
An orgasm brings you to another world. You become oblivious to everything
around you. Reality disappears, until your parents walk in on you.
Music is an escape to another realm. An imaginary realm of sound where
images, notes and rhythms collide. But the music isn't reality. (Where do you
go when you dance?)
Drugs are an escape. But then so is everything else. Life is an escape from
reality. Most amusement brings you away from reality. When you role-play you
create another reality to live in. When you read a book, you eneter the
author's reality. When you watch a movie or a television show, you escape into
the screen. Even with this pen I escape into the reality I create with these
words.
Play a game. Cut yourself and escape into the pain. Are we ever in reality?
One-third of your life is spent sleeping, dreaming of another reality. If all
life is but an escape from reality, does reality even exist? Or is the escape
the only thing that exists?
Should we try to experience reality if it exists? Why, when we get so much
pleasure escaping from it. What is it that which is not reality? It is anything
which exists purely in the mind. The dream, the concept of the game, the logic
of the music. Noise, light. These are reality. Our mind's construction into
organised structures is illusion, escape. What allows us to escape into the
music and not the cars honking outside. Our mind. It becomes attracted to the
organisation. Organised noise. Organised light. Do we organise it or do our
minds?
Is life simply a distraction from death? A distraction from the reality o
the immortal soul? Is this the way our immortal soul gets its kick?
Everything in life is a crutch. Without crutches our lives would fall apart
(Self-Serving Bias: An attempt to put blame on something other than ourselves
to preserve our ego. When one takes blame for everything, one loses all
confidence and becomes non-functional). We all need crutches to some degree,
like we need our egos.
The problem occurs when we do not know we are using something as a crutch
and so abuse the crutch. When this occurs one may escape reality never to come
back (like those of whom religion was so much of a crutch that when Christ
failed to appear to them on 28. October 1992, they killed themselves and
released themselves from reality). This abuse of a crutch is often called an
addiction.
I admire a man who knows he has crutches and uses it to his advantage.
People who reject crutches are rejecting the only escape from life. The good
things in life are those that get you away from it. Remember, crutches hold
people up. Where would you be with no earth under your feet? (falling)
You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are
living. Then you read a book (Lady Chatterley, for instance), or you take a
trip, or you talk with Richard, and you discover that you are not living, that
you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first,
restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might
degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an
innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die
like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They
picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment
takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from
death. Some never awaken. They are like the people who go to sleep in the snow
and never awaken.
- Anaïs Nin
people seem to possess this strange compulsion to write and tell everyone about
the mundane details of their boring lives. i admit to being guilty of this
crime, but surely there must be something better we could be saying if we're
going to be killing trees anyway. | i write. i wish to record every new thing
i discover in stories and poems, but my hand does not move quickly enough. my
mind does not work quickly enough. so i store things in my memory, reserving
them for later collection. | anyway, forget and Artistic Movement, let's
establish an Artistic Stopsign. and when everybody's stopped moving, we can
giggle at them from the next traffic light down. | shivering from the warmth.
folding myself up until i am a compact cube and no one can stare. | i got a
fortune cookie the other day that said "your happiness is intertwined with your
outlook on life." considering my outlook as of late, that's not good news. | a
single thought saves me from total darkness. cliched blackness. but then,
everything is cliched. we "search in vain" for something, anything that is
original. finding zippo. nothing. zilch. | "everyone's a legend in their own
mind." which is probably true. i mean everyone goes around thinking about what
they'll be remembered for, and the truth is most of us won't be; we'll be
forgotten, or, at best, remembered as, "oh yeah, that's the chick who used to
date so and so." not a pretty thought. | my brain is metamorphisizing into a
mass of liquid carbon. soon there will be nothing. | there are white ducks on
the ceiling. the rug is a turquoise sea of waves with dolphin's fins bobbing in
the sunlight. mike's foot is talking to me. "come, talk to mistah sito,"
it says. the problems are only mildly hard. my locket opened unexpectedly.
dude. | i have this addictive and insatiable need to be loved. | and what about
the notion of "popularity"? nobody likes these people. everyone resents them
because a) they're assholes or b) they want to be one of them and aren't. and
since everyone knoes that these people don't like each other, because it's
competition, how did they ever get to be known as Popular? high school is a
fucked up place. i'll be exceedingly happy if i escape with my sanity. | i'm
going insane. i hate when that happens. everyone's faces look like cabbages to
me. the sky is orange. the sun is a great big banana. the rug is a spiral ocean
of grass. the world looks grey today. an un-insane thought. | there's only one
real star. the rest are made of glass. a thought to leave you with. | last
night i got this craving for blood. (i'm serious, don't laugh or tell me it's
not true). i took a knife and tried to cut my wrist but the blade was too dull
and i only succeeded in making a nasty looking scar. i don't know why. mike
tells me that, from my obsessions with the undead, my subconscious is making me
a psychological vampire. this makes sense, but wouldn't i be able to control
it? last night i went through all the motions in a total daze. i was fascinated
by the pain i was causing myself. i didn't want to die, i just wanted blood. i
was thirsty, and needed blood. | i survived the shrink. next week she is going
to die. there is a clock in the office and she kept looking at it, which was
located right above my head. the chick also would not let me finish my
statement. i am going to ask her if she is just slightly preoccupied with
time! | but honestly, when you just want to be left alone for a while what
bearing does the fact that mom loves you have on it? "oh good, you love me. now
i'll go join the cheerleading squad and have a complete life." why am i writing
this to you? | "some of which you will recognise, some of which you will not."
for some reason, these words linger inside my mind. the applause and music snap
me out of my morbid and dreary thoughts. a nice background for my writing. the
fads of yesterday have tappered off into only a smattering of stickers here
and there. they no longer decorate the hallway, giving the dull greyish school
a more exciting, sparky look. now, the hall is once again colorless. a jazzy
trombone piece. a snap of someone's fingers, and the entire auditorium joins
in. unfortunately, they are all off-beat. | can anyone really possess a soul
whose highest ambition is to have the blondest hair of all their friends? damn
it, there Has to be something else going on inside their heads because no one
could be alive if that was All they thought about! | i live in the past too
much. so frank said. he's right, but a lot of the time it's how i cope with
things. | i think i've decided that there is no such thing as a truly sane
person. there's just people who think they're normal and everyone else is
neurotic, and people who accept that they're nuts. i mean really -- have you
ever met a Sane person? or for that matter a truly happy person? everyone seems
too busy living soap opera lives to enjoy themselves. only the wood nymphs are
happy, because, to quote a friend, "when is the last time you Saw an unhappy
nymph?" | hi. i'm back. that is the singular most obvious statement i have
ever made. "i'm back." well, of course i am! | "you're turning psycho," a
reproachful voice speaks up. well, who the hell cares? i've known that since
the age of one half. and what is the point of playing silly quiz games? get the
wrong answer and forever be ridiculed by fellow classmates. or get the right
answer and be hated for being more intelligent than a hair brush full of kinky
brown hair someone forgot to clean out. | i'm waiting for a haircut that is
like a religious experience. | i had a wonderful day at work today and have
decided to quit.
- quotes from letters of angst
There are those of us who walk on the dark side of life.
Welcome. Enter our domain. Have you ever drunk human blood? Vampire
clubs in downtown Philadelphia. Bloody Mary, anyone? I cut my finger so
I can suck the blood out. The salty taste of fresh blood. Sweet like the
ocean water.
Walking out in the rain on a dark and stormy night. Staring at the sky, eluding
the gaze in my eyes. Feel the rain soak your body. A cold breeze blows
through my clothes. Freezing you, isn't it?
Come. On the bedroom floor. Into the forest. Deeper and deeper. Darkness.
Death is an ecstasy. Take me now. I can feel the pills taking effect. This
is my last song. Please turn up the radio. I must listen. Solitaire. The King
of Hearts. Goodbye, my friend. I'll see you in Hell.
A knife stabbing through my foot. The blood drips down slowly seeping into
the carpet. Pain fleets up my body like a raging river of ecstasy. Where is
my mother? Stains on the carpet. The only thing left to say I was even
here. Will someone drink my last vein of blood?
Walking through a street in south Troy. The houses, falling apart, seem to
have a character all their own. I know the people living in there. That
rat infested filth not fit for human life. This is the pits of despair.
Welcome. I live there. I am one of those people. We search for food each
night. We would work, if someone would give us a job. But they don't and
we live here.
Waking up in a daze. Where am I? A bench in Washington Park. If only I could
remember the previous night. There is snow on the ground, I am cold. But there
is no one to warm me. I live alone, on the streets. Why should I want to
remember last night?
Did you hear her screaming? Do you understand why she was doing that? If
only you knew the pleasure pain can bring. Try living in a world that won't
feed its own children. We are fed. She was screaming because I hit her.
Have you ever had sex in a graveyard? Visiting the tombstones at night. We
have an acute awareness of our own mortality. Reasons we visit the dead. It
is only us who truly remember the dead. Not those that visit the cemetary
when people are buried. Or to visit a long gone loved one. We visit the dead.
Not people.
Enter our world if you want. Dark clubs with loud music. People are dancing.
Enjoying tonight. We might die tomorrow. Come with us and live and maybe
tomorrow you too will die.
There are those of us who walk on the dark side of life.
but religion is another temporary cure for angst. it's like alcohol or
acid or whatever: it only works as long as you're using it. the
difference is that it's easier on the body/life and more socially
acceptable to be religious all the time than to be drunk or tripping
or high all the time.
i can hear the objection already: "but alcohol and drugs screw up your
*mind*. they impair your capacity for thought and independent action."
i won't argue that, but so does a rigid adherence to a belief system
(like christianity). if you've "cured" your angst by flinging yourself
into religious fervor, you've basically just put a new set of filters
on your brain. instead of interpreting things the way you used to, you
now relate everything to your belief system. no more pain because
there's an easy answer for everything. the problem is that you lose
your capacity for objective thought unless you're really good at
coping with cognitive dissonance. and the scary thing is, you're most
likely not too aware of the impairment. at least when you're drunk,
you *know* you're drunk.
sine | deb
pursuing cures for angst is what drives everyone. *everything* is an
attempt to put order and meaning in life. every attempt is arbitrary.
even religion.
sine | deb
| 12 Bar Blues in Key D |
| D | G | D | D7 |
| G | G7 | D | D7 |
| A7 | G7 | D | A7 |
"and in the end
the love you take
is equal to
the love you make."
- The Beatles
|