newbuginnings-blog

[newbuginnings-blog]

the beginnings of fall. new projects and old friends. pittsburgh, pa, ann arbor michigan, 2017. 

[newbuginnings-blog]

new buginnings, part 2

hi, i am writing this soon after we talked to each other--i am still clearly adjusting to not having you be apart of my everyday life when i so want you to be. i am trying to give you every detail and include you in on every little fleeting feeling that i am experiencing throughout my days even though the reality is, you are busy being present somewhere else. i don't feel like i asked you enough questions or got to really talk to you because i was taking up so much space (per fucking skype usual), and i feel bad about it. 

i will make a more conscious effort to change that and to be a better digital listener to you. and to write more so that i don't feel the need to take up so much time updating you or feeling pressured to fit everything into a short amount of time. 

i am so very happy that your writing professor is being supportive and praising your work--while i get how it could easily rise to your head, i think you are beyond accepting absolutes and are good enough at self-criticism in order to stay on track with your writing (and to make it better in the ways you see fit). i would love to read anything you send me, even just a little blurb--i often remember the first time i heard your poetry and realized that i was in love with you and it was scary, and i still return very quickly to that feeling now when i read what you create, even as your abilities have changed and grown. 

i am looking forward to having tomorrow free of duties (at least until the evening) and am going to try to practice some self-care. sometimes i get the feeling that self-care discourse has become convoluted and am hence just trying constantly to understand what makes me and my body feel good. i might catch up on some sleep, practice drums, finish the stuff i need to do for school, buy my pane tickets to visit you, go on a walk and listen to my spotify discover playlist, or skate alone at the basketball court... the possibilities are fruitful. as i mentioned, i have been feeling livened by the reality of the expansive radical network that this house-project has opened me up to. i feel lucky to have tapped into it so soon and in the ways that i have, and am looking forward to the praxis that my current projects are going to require of me--knocking for neighbors, using people's experiential knowledge as a primary resource, sharing responsibility, building affinity, breaking many more a window, plank, door. i can see already why people are so drawn towards squatting. if you feel the desire, i would like to hear any idea that you have, and am so willing to include your voice from afar on projects. 

today the medical report for my dad came in, and it was ruled an "accidental death." fentanyl, heroin, alcohol, amongst other things. i am wondering how how how a death is ever accidental and who gets to decide things like that. 

i am missing you as a partner and as a community member and am really excited already about our trip together this winter. i will continue to deliberate about south america and get back to you as soon as i have my shit figured out. i really appreciate you, and still can't help but desire futures where this distance is not so vast. 

with love and care, 

"bug" p.c.z. 

[newbuginnings-blog]

dad jokes

inspired by harryette mullen

make the insignificant marvelous and the marveled-at a blown out candle. then we’d be having three funerals. check that the stove is turned off before you get burnt down. safety first, look behind you when you’re moving forward. move on, boys will be boys. sorry for telling that joke, i shouldn’t be saying things like that around my daughter. luke, i am your dad sorry for turning all dark-side on you, you must have felt really abandoned without someone to look up to. don’t call me a traitor because i stopped calling.

[newbuginnings-blog]

quick thoughts on being back

being back in the states came as a fast transition. sometimes extreme familiarity after a long period of being away is just as scary as the discomfort of being someplace new. the regularity of it all stunned me at first, but i was also thrilled to be riding in the backseat of sam’s convertible, listening to loud music and speeding down the highway at the wee hours of the morning. something about being back in the same places as a year before, the same muggy pittsburgh heat of july, put me deep in my head. smoking cigarettes on the front porch with isaac, watching the traffic buzz across the bridges and along the sparkling river in the distance. the quiet i know so well, periodically disrupted by the sounds of construction from next door, followed by the abrasive barking of nora. i spent the first days in constant contact with friends. i was wondering why, despite the fact that i was staying busy by surrounding my self non stop with people, people i hadn’t seen in a year or more, i still felt this immense crushing feeling in my chest. purposelessness, is what it resembled. i looked for answers in the old things i used to love. then one of my old friends kissed me, and another admitted his love to me. and i felt even emptier than before. tired of smoking weed and waiting around to hang out on different porches in different neighborhoods, i tried to think of new and creative ways to spend my time. there is definitely more to pittsburgh than what i had made out of it before i departed for germany. i spent some time with friends from middle school and talked about it with isaac and elias, who both seemed to understand in different ways what i was going through. i described the beauty of my platonic relationships in germany to elias, and they explained how they had felt upon returning to the states from south america. people expect you and even want you to be the same person that you were before you left. and for me, that means the new and abstract challenge of asserting myself as a grown and changed person even in old or seemingly unchanged relationships and places. the question i have been posing to myself lately, and still in the process of pinning down, is: how have i changed? what do i want to keep from the old me, what do i want to cut off, how do i want to approach this old place as a new person? isaac reminded me that not everything is linear and i can’t expect myself to be moving and growing so rapidly and constantly as i had been in germany. i am allowed to relax, i am allowed to take a break. and i should still be willing to push myself, to use the bravery i have developed abroad to take on the projects i see as useful in the familiar context of my community(ies) in pittsburgh.

this week i was able to get away. isaac and i stayed in the giant brownstone in park slope, nyc that belongs to the family of one of their classmates. the magic of living in such an extravagant place and being able to pretend it is your own for a couple days is lovely and refreshing. i shot the video with abbie that we had been talking about, and it went very well, making me feel much better about one of my more recently pressing insecurities (my progress and growth as a musician). new york city is the perfect place to go if you want to feel humbled—the unrest of the loud streets and busy metro stations will make you forget the sound of your own voice and footsteps and remember the chaos and size of the rest of the world. we visited isaac’s friend from tasp at her apartment in manhattanville, and she gave me some encouraging words about applying to college in new york/barnard. although she offered a fair deal of criticism, a (variously good) part of her approach to most things, it mostly got me excited about the potential of going to university, moving to an entirely new place, meeting lots of new people, and finding a niche for myself within the whole situation. i am facing up to the fact that i have lots to learn, both intellectually and about the world as a person trying to exist independently in it.

isaac and i got smoked up under the manhattan bridge by two kind strangers, who repeatedly encouraged us to stop by the liquor store where they worked in brooklyn to get some drinks on the down low. they dramatically and hilariously told stories about the rat problem in new york and many other little things, entertaining us to the point where we didn’t have to say much to get along. after that, isaac and i promised each other not to get high again in new york without more premeditation, and took a funny train ride home where we crashed in the comfort of the futon on the third floor of the park slope brownstone. trying to save money, we cooked lots of eggs and ate lots of toast and cereal and a mango. the last night, we held a movie night using the projector in our living room for isaac’s friend claire and her roommates. we viewed get out, and then to subdue the horror, saving face, a sweet awkward chinese-american lesbian love story. in between it all, we spent our days eating and reading and wandering parks and trying to up the romance of staying in with cheap wine and fancy goodwill outfits. it was good quiet company, and isaac said that they were actually looking forward to getting back to pittsburgh after spending a little time in the big city. i semi-secretly have an urge to move to nyc everytime i come here, but i save it for some strange and uncertain future. right now i am just thinking about finishing high school, doing my best at the projects i have planned in pittsburgh, and little things, like getting my driver’s permit and making new friends.

trying to refocus myself in the newness of my oldest setting is difficult, as if this context makes sense on its own, but not for me, here and now. i am ready to keep reflecting and use the mechanisms i developed in germany—especially concentrating on my music. i am working on distancing myself from relationships with inappropriate expectations, or where i feel the constant demand to expend energy (without getting the same listening ear in return), while keeping in close touch with the people who are the most important to me (who all seem to be moving further and further away… luisa, isaac, precious, etc). more than anything and as always, i need to take chances and give myself the space to rest without naming it unproductive.

i am not feeling good, but i know fruitful things are coming soon, and that it is important to be home.

[newbuginnings-blog]

8/7/17, Lied für den Heulen das Tschüss folgt/Solidarität mit Hamburg

[newbuginnings-blog]

auf wiedersehen

the last several weeks have been the happiest i have had in a long time, not to say they were joyful the entire time but to mean that they were filled with laughter, good food, kind people, and have been the most relaxed, and the easiest for me to engage with moment by moment since i arrived in dresden in september. i stopped planning ahead to pass time, i started to realize what it meant to enjoy things as they are, and when i figured that out time started passing differently. i submitted my writing for the first time. i tried my best to have a conversation with mina, vêra’s daughter who only speaks czech, and managed to communicate through hand signs and cuddles and onomatopoeias. aware that our time together is coming to an end—or at least coming to the first ending of many—luisa and i have tried time and time again to cry together, laying in our shared bed under the stars in her brother’s room, and failed, laughing ourselves out of sadness instead. i even tried playing sad music, the florist album i have cried to so many times before, but we just ended up with flustered emotions that prevented us from sleeping the whole night. i feel guilty when i can’t say i am excited to come home, especially to my mom, but the truth is i am more excited to get a good night of sleep. the past couple days i have been sick which changes everything. it was about time my body reminded me of my vices, that i almost let my plants die, that i have started sleeping during the mornings rather than in the night. i was in hamburg a few weeks before g20 and i felt the energy buzzing there, anticipating what has begun this week, 20,000 police and an expected 100,000 demonstrators from all around europe and the whole world fighting against the gross manifestation of capitalism that is neoliberal politics. missing it by a few days, i fly to washington on the 9th. now all people ask each other is “fährst du nach hamburg?” and i can’t help but be constantly reminded of my lack of control over this situation, but maybe it is for the better.

under the pressure of numbered days, and feeling sick, i haven’t done anything particularly special. over the weekend i visited lino in leipzig and we spent most of our time trying to fix their sink, sitting on the balcony eating knacker bröt, and lounging on corners of the eisenbahnstraße. i spent lots of time with samuel this week, we went together to what will be my last montag demo in a while, which ended up being a tanz demo that was bigger than i had ever seen it get. the weather was gorgeous as we sipped our umsonst johanisbeere limonade and danced behind the giant trucks carrying the speakers. we watched someone give the hitler salute and not get a penalty from the police because he put his thumb and pinky together. the parallels i see between the pegida demonstrators and neo-fascist trump supporters in the u.s. is unbelievable.

last night i said goodbye to the alternative center in dresden. although i haven’t grown extremely close with the people there, i have seen them so often and will miss them. it is hard to imagine that this is the end of anything at all. i feel as though i will be coming back soon, especially since now i am able to gauge how quickly a year can pass when you keep busy. but i know it will never be the same as now. next time i come back, luisa will live in leipzig, the conni will be renovated, and somehow it will all be different.

i am feeling thankful, i am feeling bitter sweet. i am savoring. i am already beginning to miss. i am not feeling ready to stop saying tschüss. but i am full of love and anticipation.  

July 6, 2017. 

[newbuginnings-blog]

conni verabschieden :’) 5/7/2017

[newbuginnings-blog]

für jakob 

young death reminds us all to hush down

stop hating each other and love love love

we mourn not being able to do anything

we mourn the helplessness

and respect the rituals

and say if you need anything

anything at all

just let me know

[newbuginnings-blog]

czechia midday and evening, june, 2017 

[newbuginnings-blog]

Weimar, Berlin, Rychnov, Dresden, Hamburg--26.5.27-20.6.17

[newbuginnings-blog]

exaggerations out of love//an email left hanging in cyberspace

for amrit and thembie

a raging affection

no mutual expectations

mother and child

a child and her mother

the mother is strong and fully formed,

seems to the child unending and omnipotent,

she must be—

caring, effulgent, kin to the sun and moon.

the child is uncontrollable

his tiny fists beat up against the sureness

every moment spent alone

is frantic in fear of abandonment.

by you i felt adopted

a resistant love molded through the warmth of evanescence

inevitably imbalanced

for i am more invested in your nourishment

than you in my continued needing.

i contend the gap between us while

you view your worlds with eyes

deepened by discovery, narrowed with criticism.

i pose immobile and envious,

but unwilling to give up.

you must not reply—don’t respond.

my beckons are rhetorical,

and duly owed.

[newbuginnings-blog]

berlin, 17-21 may, 2017.

[newbuginnings-blog]

if you ever want to not feel bad about your body,

make it into a piece of motion

go bike ten miles as fast as you possibly can

and when you come back

sprawl out naked on your bed panting

void of sex, void of beauty, void of self consciousness

you will turn into a kid again

back like you used to lay for hours

sweaty on the loveseat in only underwear

watching television

for years until

your dad told you

you were getting too old for that and ought to put on some clothes

stomach poked out, legs spread, mind somewhere else

the only difference between then and now is

now you’re a little bigger

if you ever want to not feel the weight of your body,

make it into a piece of motion

and all the working parts will emerge as one solid

beat

[newbuginnings-blog]

upon first glance

necks craned

                       i'll take a bite

blood, red

                italian wine

falling alseep to

                           summer candles

the smell of

                   sweet rain

hanging on your breath says

                                                 soon

soon

        to cradle:

hip to rib bone

                         throat to nape

                                                  chin to collar

our warmth

                    one swift gust

humming through wrinkles

                                            in bedsheets left tousled

by tired

             loving

the way wind whistles through nevadan canyons

                                                                              and californian valleys

hushed

             dreams

splaying ourselves onto

                                      the mediterranean

skin sticks

                  fall alseep

next to someone

                             in love

[newbuginnings-blog]

fell off my skateboard/intro to that tattoo

starting something anew isnt always 

fresh skin

sometimes its picking away at an old scab meticulously

or reopening an old wound

letting the blood drip out in soft volumes

isnt always 

deep breaths

sometimes short and heavy air hangs before you

lungs strangled with frustration and

gasping at still mist

isnt always 

quick changes

sometimes old habits fold unto one

another

forehead cold with desire to not

be like you used to be

isnt always 

clear cut

sometimes ends fray and cascade away

doubts slipping into edges,

boundaries becoming lips 

tender and formable

[newbuginnings-blog]

correspondences with an old friend is sometimes all that will get you to calm down 

~

phantoms stretched out on drying racks 

dear k: 

drove the others home at four am

i wanted to go straight to sleep but i had to crack myself open,

give a little more

it wasn't hard since i could've said near anything

and you would have still trusted that i

really knew

what was up.

so i started telling you anything,

talking about childhood easy like

cause you couldn't possibly judge.

and even so i didn't feel myself!

not all there at once.

we slept til eleven and i noticed

very easily

the eastern drawl in your hardened

mother's accent.

mother for a year,

to this seventeen year old girl who clearly

still can't get comfortable.

its not til i get on the train to coswig

that i notice the same songs that used to make me cry 

still do,

and i am not shedding tears but i know i could

if i wasn't so preoccupied with the power of other people.

dear lorde, 

i am moved by the windows that allow me

to view

your life, and peek

into the lives of these poets past

i wonder what in the world they have to do with one another

so so

far apart,

split by oceans and decades and skins and

god a million other things 

i am still riding

in places where you have never been.

dear pz,

in the east german countryside,

i notice things lightyears away from the echo chambers 

(you grew in like a culture in a petri dish)

i notice my tiniest desires

they still push hard enough on my (sopping)

brain

to be realized and responded to

how am i supposed to care on all these different levels?

lover of horses...

you're living to clean up this mess?

understand?

may 7, 2017

~

the sun is as red as my head and i am the healthiest dandelion to ever live 

~

it is a saturday evening and i am on a connecting train to altmitweida. this past week has been chilly and full of grey fog, making me feel on a different planet. but the sweet vanilla scent of flower petals stands as a constant reminder that it is the middle of spring. today i woke to surprising warmth. the sun is mimicking the moon as it shines its lime tint over the fields. i am learning how to be assertive and demanding without being loud or overbearing. i am reading the end of audre lordes autobiography and the collected works of maya angelou, and am feeling full of poetry and inspiration. i am on my way to celebrate kyla's birthday. while kyla and i arent much more than acquainted, she has the familiarity of pennsylvania and i am looking forward to the ease of that. sometimes the ease disturbs me, i feel restless with the lack of challenge, but now i find it appropriate. today luisa and i went to the demo and both decided against the higher risk activities and instead walked to the neustadt and bought salads at the consum and walked through flea markets and bought funny things, like a pair of rainbow striped pants with a hole in the crotch, that reminded me of the striped wallet my mom used to pay for the bus with when i was four. merce messaged me to tell me to come to seattle this summer and i really want to go and play a show with them. 

i have come to enjoy riding trains so much no matter where to. i like being on the move, just me and a book and a backpack, at each stop freshly sprayed acabs and faded declarations of existence contrasting with the thick grey walls that echo ddr times. i feel angry knowing that audre lorde was cheated on by her lover, but am happy that she also learned german.

may 6, 2017 

[newbuginnings-blog]

portal to relief

there are some afternoons where

the world feels like rain on my back

and lighthouses, some of them without roofs,

stare back at me from a distance

poking out of the fog and occasionally illuminating my face

i can hardly look in the mirror 

in this damned darkness

a storm comes after quiet, and quiet comes after storms,

so sometimes its hard to hold onto hope

elongate, push, contractions in the muscles of the earth

every time the pulses stop,

we stock up for the next wave

and we never catch a breath.

i heard the kids sleeping with their light on

fear raiding their restless guts

because they loved someone so dearly

who died at the hands of their so called protectors

how do you grieve when there’s barely space for a tear drop?

squeezed all the air out like freedom,

airtight and searching for a place to cry under all that surveillance

how do you grieve if you’re worrying about survival, crushed

and brief as childhood

you should have an escape route

somewhere you can slip out to

when the storm hits the streets,

miniature rivers floating paper boats into sewers and the distant siren

anticipating murder

i close up my old worldview 

if i get too close

the innocence of those pages engulf in flames

yes,

somewhere to run

a prairie maybe, way out west in the times before it counted

you feel ghostly because spirits guide you

you can tell a storm just passed because

the grass is wet and there’s that smell in the air

like despair but not as heavy

the only sounds are a raging river and the friction of cricket wings

watching grasshoppers pounce you realize

suddenly you have all the space in the world

a breath let out like freedom