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zurich-snows · 1 year

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Walking with Nandita

By Moyra Davey

Here was the soup. It was a plain gravy soup. There was nothing to stir the fancy in that. One could have seen through the transparent liquid any pattern that there might have been on the plate itself. But there was no pattern. The plate was plain. —Virginia Woolf, “A Room of One’s Own” (1929)

New York City, 157th Street

I am trying to think “language or hunger,” but I inevitably supplant hunger with eating, not eating, and shitting, all of which differ from hunger. Hunger is abstract, and my mind goes to things that are concrete.

Alejandra Pizarnik’s Diarios are pure poetry. I made the rounds of Paris bookstores till I found a single copy of the beautiful José Corti paperback with Pizarnik’s face on it. She is pulling a book off a high shelf and staring back at the camera, at us. I kept this book on a skinny Chippendale bookcase next to my bed with the cover facing out for several years so that I might meet her soulful gaze daily. I read a hundred pages or so before standing the book up like that. I was blown away by the diaries, but they are also inescapably dark. For Pizarnik, suicide was not a question of if but when, and she wrote about it almost daily, as though death was her little friend. She envied Virginia Woolf.

Hungry, thirsty, in need of stimulants, Pizarnik’s appetites and cravings were outsized. She hated herself after lunch and dinner, and wrote: “To not eat I must be happy. And I cannot be happy if I am fat.”

In my bones I understand Pizarnik’s tautology, but my mind needs to metabolize it over and over. I memorize it; it slips away.

Here is Alison Strayer’s lovely spin (Pizarnik’s idea somewhat teased out): “to write, driven by inspiration, you have to be thin and fleet, and to be thin and fleet you have to write, driven by inspiration. A conundrum.”

In her 1975 film Je tu il elle (I, You, He, She), Chantal Akerman shovels powdered sugar into her mouth while writing lying down—she is composing and revising a very long letter. The entire bag of sugar is ingested, spoonful by spoonful, to fuel the manic, around-the-clock writing. As viewers of her film, we bear witness to what is surely one of the most sustained and inspired moments of self-abuse in the service of avant-garde, materialist cinema.

Conversely, when Virginia Woolf succumbed to periods of so-called madness, the treatment consisted of denying her both language and hunger. She was not permitted to read or write, and she was made to consume excessive quantities of meat and milk. Her intellect was starved, and her naturally thin frame was fattened against her will. According to her great-niece, Emma Woolf, the regimen consisted of: “Four or five pints of milk daily, as well as cutlets, liquid malt extract and beef tea.”

Woolf appears gaunt in some of her photographs. Like many writers, she probably didn’t experience hunger when she was writing. She was prolific, and it is likely that language evacuated bodily hunger for a good portion of her life. Her great-niece has speculated that Woolf was anorexic, but if that’s the case I’d wager only in the sense that she had no appetite. Though who knows. Forced to bulk up, she might have developed a fear of fat.

Woolf wrote about food, most famously in “A Room of One’s Own.” She describes the bland meal served in the dining hall of a women’s college and speculates on the necessary (and there absent) connection between stimulation of the palate and stimulation of the mind. In “Evening over Sussex” she describes the comfort food that awaits her after a long day of travel and walking, and no doubt writing parts of the namesake essay in her head.

In the episode of Ulysses known as “Calypso,” which begins with a very large printed “M,” Leopold Bloom, after his breakfast of grilled kidneys, famously retires to the outhouse where he reads two columns of the newspaper and produces one or two excremental pillars of his own. Evacuated and grateful, he nonetheless envies the writer of the article who was paid “at the rate of one guinea a column.”

American artist Pope.L masticates the Wall Street Journal and allegedly washes it down with milk while sitting atop a toilet perched on a tower.

Canadian poet Elizabeth Smart, living in England, makes a New Year’s resolution list for the year 1945. Below are the first seven items listed:

1) Keep a diary or Daily Notebook. 2) Keep Accounts and never spend more than £20 a month on living (and partly living). 3) Keep the children Prettily dressed always. 4) Keep Everything Clean. 5) Answer all letters within three days. 6) Keep bowels open. 7) Have a baby. [checked] Sebastian 16 April 1945.

Discipline, money/frugality, cleanliness, punctuality, open bowels (which I’m sure Smart meant literally, but I’d also infer an implied wish for writing to flow more readily), and having a baby form the top priorities. Smart had four babies all by the same man, George Barker, who’d never consent to live with her, nor would he let her go, thus keeping her in a decades-long state of unrequited craving and misery.

Writing at the end of her life, in a state of relative isolation, photographer Julia Margaret Cameron was clear about her needs: “I feel it is as necessary to give a hungry heart a letter as a hungry body a slice of bread.”

continued...

#moyra davey #walking with nandita #documenta14

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freakingoutthesquares · 1 year

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RUSSELLING FEATHERS: A POP STAR WRITES A PLAY

And it’s a musical.

About the 1980s miner’s strike.

Think it sounds like a bad idea?

Well don’t worry, so does he.

Russell Senior was always an Awkward Pulp. Following their huge mid 90s successes, he left the band in January 1997 during the sessions for future single ‘Help the Aged’ because, “previously, the music always came collectively, from creative clashes, but I think Jarvis believed his own press and suddenly he was coming in with his own tunes. I didn’t think Help the Aged was worthy of following Common People,” he told the Guardian in 2009.

This tension was nothing new, however. A mid-80s interview released by Paul Mills’ Premspeak label and recently re-circulated captures a sparring Jarvis Cocker and Russell in full glory when discussing a 1983 Pulp gig that took place shortly before Russell joined the band:

Jarvis: “That was probably the best concert that that line-up played. That was quite good.” Russell:“I saw that concert and I thought they’d utterly sold out. Crap. They should have split up. Really hated it. You know, they’re very good songs and all that kind of thing, but it didn’t mean owt.” Jarvis:“Yeah, well it did mean something to me.”

When Russell joined Pulp later that year, he took them from the singer songwriter style naivety (and, “crap”) of ‘My Lighthouse’ and ‘Love Love’on the ‘It’ debut album to the discordant, atonal post-punk noise of ‘Tunnel’, ‘They Suffocate at Night’ and his own anti-fascist rant,‘The Will to Power’. Acclaim followed. Sales didn’t.

Russell wrote and sang other songs within Pulp, too. These aren’t the ones that appear on best-ofs. He set the ancient poem ‘To His Coy Mistress’ to a soundtrack of a plinking synth and drum rolling cacophony, he wrote and sang on the ‘Freaks’ album’s nightmarish ‘Fairground’ and ‘Pick Me Up! Magazine’s future headline story, ‘Anorexic Beauty’ before then indulging his burgeoning passion in Eastern European folk punk with the thigh-slapping ‘Srpski Jeb‘, the sound of which when, combined with Jarvis’ new interest in Eastern European Disco signposted the way towards Pulp #4 with such Eastern European epics as ‘Love is Blind’ and ‘Don’t You Want Me Anymore‘.

And when Jarvis discovered House Music, Russell continued to play his violin all over the top of it and then delivered his own bleak, dissonant, creeping take on the new movement with ‘This House is Condemned’ which provided the climax to the ‘Separations’ LP.

And when Pulp went properly pop with Babies, Razzmatazz, Lipgloss etc. Russell was still there, playing his guitar lines that sometimes fit and sometimes jarred pleasantly, his violin parts that lifted some of the songs of this era to greatness and that ever-present deathly stare from behind his epic collection of sunglasses. Thus, whilst Jarvis got the crowd going, “people’d be dancing, but there’d be a pool of emptiness in front of me, with people looking terrified. I started wearing sunglasses so I wouldn’t disconcert people,” as he drily told Select in 1994.

But there was another side to Russell too, for the above chronology isn’t quite as straight forward as it may seem. When the lineup that performed ‘It’ fell apart in 1983, there was far from an immediate segue to the Russell era of Pulp. For, instead of performing new songs onstage, the remnants of that lineup began performing, instead, as actors in Russell’s plays.

Those two remaining members, Jarvis and drummer Magnus Doyle, along with new recruit Tim Allcard (on hunting horn and poetry, of course) and Russell formed a performance collective called ‘The Wicker Players’ and performed Russell’s plays ‘The Fruits of Passion’ and ‘The Wicker Players Christmas Panto’ in 1983 at venues including Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre, followed by ‘The Wicker Players Mystery Event’ in 1985 and a final performance at Sheffield Polytechnic at the end of 1986 (alongside Jarvis and ‘Captain Sleep’ playing “the daft disco songs” that would later go on to form much of Separations).

And now, after a quarter of a century, there’s a new play from the hand of Russell and his present-day collaborator, Sheffield-based DJ and former Kings Have Long Arms musician, Ralph Razor. The play is called ‘Two Tribes’ and it is, as the headline above promised you, a play about the 1980s miners’ strike.

So, just why has it taken 25 years to write a follow up play? “I never thought I’d write a play again,” states Russell seated in the office space in central Sheffield that the two are renting for the duration of the project, “I’d concluded that – to use the language of the mid-eighties – theatre was ‘bourgeois’ and wanted to get into something with a bit more bite, which being in a band certainly had.”

“Two Tribes” is a departure from Russell’s earlier work in that,“there’s very little if any surrealism in the play” which may well come as a disappointment for those wanting to see a return from characters such as Authoritarian #1 and Authoritarian #2 or scenes such as Jarvis eating a plate of (fake) dog shit at a job interview, but there is a potential sop to those clamouring for the wilfully odd Senior of old in that, “we are contemplating putting on ‘a cross between an installation, a disco and a seaside attraction’ in the run-up which would have something for those of the Dadaist persuasion.”

Or is he joking? Does he joke?

Originally, when Ralph first pitched the ‘Two Tribes’ idea to Russell, the latter stated that he thought it was a “ridiculous idea, and I want no part of it”. Now however, he “still has that reluctance, but sometimes you just have to get something down and see how it goes. I’m not sure who else is going to tell this tale and it’s a tale worth the telling.”

The enormous chronological gap between his plays has given Russell room to move away from seeing it as a continuation of his previous work in that he “can’t really think of any” lessons to be learnt from his earlier pieces. However, he does not that “the only time a play didn’t really ‘work’ was in the Crucible Theatre… so avoid theatres is maybe [a lesson to be learnt]… I dunno, ask me one on sport! Oh actually I’m a Blades fan… so maybe not.”

Oh! He does joke! The interviewing of this somewhat daunting character might be less traumatic than I had previously thought. Maybe we can even get away with asking something about Pulp later without getting stared at until we wither.

For now though, and given that this interview is being given in relation to ‘Two Tribes’, I was interested in how the concept of a “musical about the miner’s strike” could be sold to a hypothetical ‘battle hardened ex-miner’ who might think that ex-pop stars and DJs should something they know nothing about well alone. Russell opines that “it’s a big story and there’s room for all different ways to tell it, this is just one. And it isn’t compulsory. I’d hope our ‘battle-hardened ex-miner’ was as friendly as the ones I met during the strike…there was an awful lot of humour around at the time and it would be a misrepresentation to exclude that and get too po-faced about it.”

Ralph Razor agrees, and also has a line with which to sell the play; “’Two Tribes’ is a musical for people who don’t like musicals. We bring all the songs into it in a plausible way and in realistic settings; i.e. if someone does break into song, they do so in at a place/time when they could feasibly break into song and there’s no big cheesy chorus line dance numbers. We’re primarily using the hits of the time but haven’t ruled out using some original music in some way. We also plan to heavily re- work certain tracks into sort of musique concrete by creating layered soundscapes of domestic, industrial or other related sounds. There are elements of humour, and some camp moments but it’s not a high camp farce or send up of the strike, it has plenty of grit and it dramatises the main events and tells the story in a sensitive and respectful way.”

“With the current political climate of high unemployment, strikes, a Conservative government and public sector spending cuts the Miners’ Strike couldn’t be more relevant.”

“There is also a certain charm in taking a rag-tag bunch of misfits, whipping them into shape and creating something brilliant, in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts; but we are definitely not against casting experienced and possibly named actors. It’s more about getting actors who are right for the play. We are based in Sheffield, and intend to launch ‘Two Tribes’ in Sheffield, and the play is based in South Yorkshire and North Nottinghamshire so it makes sense to cast actors from the local area.” Russell agrees and points out that “it’s more likely you can find someone who can do the accent and feel the feelings round here.”

Ralph further states that “writing a musical isn’t really much different to putting on a club night. It’s all about creating a concept and choosing which songs to play, and when to play them, and then actually doing it and seeing it through,” and Russell says that “it’s always 90% perspiration. There’s the pub-talk, which is easy and then there’s the turning up and doing it, which is hard. I can confirm that people in the art world are still, for the most part, unreliable fuckwits who prefer the former to the latter.”

At the present time, Ralph states that“the script is ready to be developed and work-shopped with actors, and we have had quite a bit of interest already from directors and producers so watch this space.” Russell clarifies that “though most of the writing is done I’d say 90% of the work is still ahead of us because we’d like to do it in a particular style.”

The writing of the play was started early last year. Since then, both Russell and Ralph (with the latter acting as the former’s PA) were involved in 2011’s hugely successful Pulp reunion tour, although they avoided the Australian and Eastern European dates due to Russell’s fear of flying. Before the tour,“We were fairly close to finishing the play,” says Ralph,“We had completed the first act (of two), and had written about half of the second act with the rest in draft form. We also had quite a bit of word of mouth interest and momentum by that point so after the tour was over, we decided to pick things up again.”

They hadn’t been able to work on the play on tour due, Russell says, to being in a “different headspace entirely…where are my Kumquat’s peasant?! I said fresh ice – not this frozen rubbish!”

Given that Pulp are continuing to tour this year, but without Russell’s involvement, are we to take from that that this play means more to you than the idea of continuing to play with Pulp does?

“I guess it’s new over old. Doing the Pulp thing as a special event was a blast, but I wouldn’t want to make a career out of it. That way sadness lies.”

“Doing the Pulp tour hasn’t altered the approach [to the play] as far as I can see, although the strike certainly influenced my approach to the business of being in a band. In a way it’s a similar thing you strive for, to reach that tipping point where people lose sense of self and become part of a crowd, which has its own mass consciousness…well that’s on a good day anyway, and there were some good days, even this time round there was definitely a sense of communion at times and that’s a precious thing.”

You mention the strike changing your approach to the band. What were your views on the situation at the time? Presumably you probably hold quite hardline views on [then Labour Leader Neil] Kinnock’s attacking of [National Union of Mineworkers President] Scargill for refusing to hold a ballot of the miners and thus denying them the blanket of legality that they would otherwise have had. Do you think Scargill was right to do this? Do you think it likely the miners would have voted to strike if they had been ballotted?

“Kinnochio is the reason I don’t vote Labour anymore. Ugh,” explains Russell.“I think they would certainly have voted to strike. It wasn’t actually Scargill’s idea not to have a national ballot, but he’s a democrat and was bound to do what the union decided. Even if they’d had a National ballot and won, then the Notthingham thing [in which the Nottingham branch of the NUM broke away from the National NUM as they disagreed with the decision to strike without a ballot] would have happened because they’d have been doing divide and rule. Like when Ireland voted for independence and they said after the event that 6 counties hadn’t so they could split off.”

Ralph believes that the miners“probably would have [voted to strike], although I suppose by not doing so, Scargill left himself open to criticism.”

Russell’s viewed on Kinnock/Scargill have remained unchanged during the writing of the play.“During the strike I was able to observe Arthur Scargill at close range. What is remarkable about him is that he is totally unremarkable, just an ordinary bloke with a daft sense of humour. He had no discernable charisma offstage, but put him in front of his people where he becomes the conduit for their mood then you are dealing with something electric.”

Finally, I was intrigued as to how Russell had taken the news that the old Sheffield NUM headquarters was to be turned into a Casino. Do acts like this make him think that it’s more important than ever for the world to see the play, or does it make him worry that people don’t care about the miners’ strike anymore?

“I think that they are knocking too many buildings down, so a change of use is better than that, then in a hundred years time the building and its ghosts will still be there. I used to go wandering round Middlewood mental asylum (as an ‘urban explorer’ –not a patient) and there was an amazingly strong atmosphere. Then they turned it into apartments and somehow it was hard to believe it was even the same building because the atmosphere had gone. It was very sad…but one has to be grateful for small mercies. A rainforest will regrow but Victorian England will never come back, so these things are priceless treasures. Do you know that there are absolutely no cutlery factories left in Sheffield anymore… and they are knocking them down like skittles? Oh what was the question?”

I’m not sure anymore. I can’t get the image of Russell as an urban explorer in some sort of horror film environment out of my head.

‘Two Tribes’ is set to be debuted (in part) at this year’s Sheffield Tramlines Festival in mid-July.

#shame it never happened really #ralph razor #theatre #sheffield #russell senior #pulp #printed article #interview #80s #politics #miners #miners strike

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nothingnew3 · 1 year

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is this just going to be my anonymous anorexic/solitary enjoyer of art and poetry/unorganized extension of my journal/etc account?

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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 2 years

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When I was in my early twenties, I used to occasionally submit poems to an online magazine that publishes local poetry. Even more occasionally, I’d get one published, and they’d pay me $15. The price point should give an idea of how not difficult it was to get published in this. But one time, in 2015, I got a poem into a publication that was slightly less unimpressive. They paid me, still not much, but more than $15. They sent me a free copy of the print edition, which my local one did not do, because my local one did not have a print edition. It was cool. I was proud of it.

They asked me for a bio, and I used the same one that I sent to my local online magazine. A couple of lines about where I was from and what I did, and then the quirky bit, which I’d put a lot of thought into when I first wrote it: “[Name] loves Canadian folk music, British comedy, and American whiskey.” I thought it sounded whimsical and funny, and it was accurate, so I just reused it every time I submitted anything anywhere.

I’m now back at my own place for the first time in a couple of months, after spending some time housesitting for a family friend and then some more time at my parents’ place. I’m enjoying being back in my bedroom, surrounded by all my own stuff. I looked around and realized this room is very much a celebration of those three things. I wrote that bio when I first started submitting poetry, in about 2012, and the way I have set up my space makes it evident that not much has changed in ten years. I present below, in the form of pictures from my bedroom: Canadian folk music, British comedy, and American whiskey.

(For the record, one of those is a birthday gift that I’ll give to my friend this weekend, I don’t usually have more than two of those going at a time.)

I also still have my copy of the journal in question. I feel like I should say I’m embarrassed about what a bad poem it was, that’s what I’d normally say about something I wrote so long ago, but I just read it again and I think I stand by it. It’s not bad. Makes sense that it was the only thing I wrote that got accepted by anywhere that pays more than $15. I mean, I did originally build it backwards from a line I really like in the TV show Angel. But the people who printed it don’t know that.

For the Kids Who Never Learned

As it turns out, knowing when to leave is more fundamental than originally thought.

II)

There are places with grounded birds where blood that congeals on feathers will rush like white water taste like nickels and stick to the pads of your fingers, your clothes and your cranial matter.

They will ask why you stay until walls spatter red. As explanation, you will have tiny white lines across the backs of your hands; the fact that starved psyches seek substitutes like anorexics suck on hard candy; a sense that in this space, you are more than the stains on your skin or the bourbon on your breath.

III) Still, a chorus has questions. How did you think this was going to end?

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taigasrandomshit · 1 year

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i'm sorry but this bot had no right going this hard. i mean, the name is ace (preciouscz? imagine being a precious cubic zirconia? the audacity! it's poetry!) and they actually picked a beautiful woman instead of an anorexic blonde as the pic? it's a shame you had to be blocked and reported *salutes* but it's for the cause.

#tumblr #bots #spam #spam bots #the bot invasion of winter 22/23

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twistsdiary · 2 years

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I’m anxious, I wish I could’ve changed how everything went, I would’ve shut my mouth sooner. I couldn’t help myself my words were coming off like rapid fire and I’m not sure how to explain to you that it wasn’t me it was the drugs. I’m not sure it’ll really make a difference to you, I’m assuming you won’t care for me much either way. I wish I could talk to you but you didn’t pick up the first time I called so why would you pick up now?

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iwantobeskinnysblog · 2 months

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Un labirinto buio, spaventoso, con suoni che riportano alle tue grida e le piante che tanto ami, ogni volta che ti avvicini all'uscita, ti tirano a loro fino a riportarti al punto di partenza

#sadnees #poetry #poets on tumblr #anorex #poesia

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writing-bitches-that-get-bitches · 1 month

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Would anyone be interested in reading some bits of a story we're writing? Summary and a bunch of random shit about it below the cut <3 (heart emoticon). Also, it's currently called " Pudding and Libraries." Anyways. Read the story summary and have a great day. Also tw demons?? Idk, people get mad about shit and while we love offending bigoted people. demons can be scary :) (smiley emoticon)

The major characters: Ezra Davis (he/it), James Abaddon (he/him), Lady Julia (the librarian, Lady Julia doesn't use pronouns), Pudding (it/they), Gem Davis (he/him)

The character descriptions:

Ezra Davis: a fat half-Black, half-Spanish transmasculine Satyr, antisocial, 18, punk, has a three-headed dog (Pudding!), queer, short attention span, disabled, short hair, really nice to people/things Pudding likes.

James Abaddon: Darkish red skin (fuck off, he's a demon), small curved horns, light burn scars on his body, bisexual, OCD haver, loves Jane Austen, disaster, Tourettic, 20

Lady Julia: Queer, bookkeeper/librarian, which, Jewish, age unknown, people know fuck all about Lady Julia, disabled

Pudding: Three-headed dog, second child of Cerberus, Pomeranian (somehow), dark purple fur (looks like stars, is actually stars), looks like a cinnamon roll but would kill you, likes cats, 10

Gem Davis: Ezra's younger brother, 14, Satyr, anorexic and ARFID, nonverbal, autistic, long hair, red eyes, albino, lives with his older brother, queer (aroace)

The story plot:

A demon (?) hangs out under Ezra's bed every night and writes poetry. The demon sings and reads his poetry aloud, which soothes Ezra to sleep. One day, the demon disappears, which concerns him. He goes to his local library to get a Jane Austen book and learns that there are many magical books there. The demon is a regular to the library, but they never see each other until one night, and it fucks up both of their worlds (but in a kind of good way?)

Random:

I apologize for the entire randomness and chaos of this, but you read the first part and decided to continue reading, so honestly that's your fault. There's also an antagonist but you won't know until you actually read the story.

#this is your sign to live #and do something nice for yourself #writeblr #writers on tumblr #i cuss a lot #and i do not apologize for that #fuck you #/affectionate #have a great day #if we're friends #Bitch come back to this post #fantasy writing #This is such a mess

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livofurlife · 5 months

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I've felt stuck for nearly two years now. A paralysis of my mind that in turn leaves my body, my life, stagnant. I am hopeful that I am slowly but surely building the courage to start moving. The only way is through. I understand that even though the things that bring me the most fear are procedural to some, I still must choose to be brave consistently. Logically I know that I deserve to have the things that I want. I deserve to live a life of my creation. Now I must push myself to create that life while battling the incessant internal insistence of shame. Why do women all carry so much shame? Living at home as a twenty-something, I can see clearly now how much of mine is generational. I have wondered for a long time why my personal view of myself, especially my physical appearance, has always felt so inconsistent. So many thoughts I believed to be my own. My mother was anorexic in her youth. Claims she just "pulled herself out of it." You don't just grow out of that. She swears she is not as vain or superficial as my grandmother, but I hear her voice come out of her often. But now I know for certain that those moments of clarity that I had mistaken for delusion were authentic thoughts. Thoughts that I knew were true at one point in my life but was convinced by others of their faultiness. I am so grateful for every part of my life. The love I have surrounding me, the beauty I see in everything. I feel as though I am regaining myself, reminding myself of all the parts of myself I had been neglecting. Not feeding my outlets has been making my heart feel starved! Reading, writing, learning, making art !! To deny yourself creating art (when I say art, I mean anything that requires a creative passion; cooking, pottery, gardening, carpentry, poetry, etc.) is to deny yourself freedom. I feel reinvigorated when I make myself a student of my passions. I have a lot of hope in my heart right now despite the struggle with nihilism in the face of humanity. I know that love can save us. The love I have in my life shows me that. I think the love I am trying to show myself will save me.

#journal entry

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hey-its-isaac · 8 months

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regarding september 3rd, being 15, and heartbreak

this account was originally made because i wanted to write poetry

i just ended up repurposing it, which is why i had already had one at the time. made it in january 2018, hey its isaac

prior to now, that would've been the lowest point of my life. i never talked about this much, but i hated myself. looking back, what i did was the right and mature thing. i didnt go into a relationship i wasn't ready for. i didn't talk about how i felt though, because i wasn't the one that was hurt. not in my mind, anyway. i became quite the bad person from that self-hatred. but is any 15 year old good?

i didn't see it as a mature decision as i do now however. back then i thought i was a monster. i fell into a horrible depression. i starved myself because that's what i thought a depressed person should do. i ended up below 100 pounds. i don't think i ever said this, but that's what i wanted.

i wanted people to notice, but i panicked when they did. i had an eating disorder, i don't know if i mentioned that ever. it was self-inflicted, but i had it nonetheless. i would pull up bmi calculators often, hoping it would show i was anorexic. i was obsessed, i thank god there wasn't a scale in the house. it took years to correct it, one of which i spent in the same white zip-up hoodie everyday. threw it out, don't like to look at it much now.

even now its kind of hard to resist that urge - especially now when i hate how gaining weight looks on me. one thing ive got going for me, and i'm not too humble to acknowledge, is i do have significant pretty privilege. and well - i wear the tired rotting look well, and i know people find me attractive. a little egotistical i guess, but i see the reactions i get. i know im treated differently.

people like me. people liked me in high school. liberal moderately/ironically funny skinny guy, people like that i guess. countless people i was either too dumb to see liked me - or i just didn't want to see at the time. i was a good kid, loyal to a friend, or perhaps my own anxiety.

it's unfortunate for them they like me, i suppose.

i digress, that period of depression extended out.. into forever, maybe. maybe a brief period of feeling better in late 2019 (coincidentally when i gained some confidence and alone time), before it all got bad again. then steady downhill climb, steep dropoff, and wherever we are now

holding a person's life in your hands does something to you. being the reason someone is still breathing the next morning is a lot of pressure. that certainly didn't help me back then.

somebody had to do it, however. and i suppose i'd prefer that she be alive today, even with the effects it has had on me to this day. i don't wish death on anybody, and would give myself up for others.

unfortunately for me.

people gravitate to me. people tell me their deepest secrets and traumas. i don't know why. im kind. i listen. i suppose i feel safe to people. in the time i've spent drifting since march, people have grown close to me. people have gotten hurt for this, out of my own mistakes, my distance, me as a person, but i'd like to think i've provided more good than bad. i do try

i don't know what it is about me that makes me different. but i know that i am. that's something me and her shared, our effect on people. i'm not surprised we were so horrible together. picture two positive magnets. a powerful attractive force, but we repel when together. well, scratch that, probably a powerful negative force.

i've never ever felt like i was where i was supposed to be in life. i know where i need to go though. and i'll get there one day. i mean, i've got time. and there's time for the YA romance to come through for me still. wouldn't mind dating a cute boy sometime. scrolling back in this tumblr, who would've guessed i was bi lol.

i still do like poetry, but i'm no good at writing it. but i do like to be symbolic and mysterious , as this seems to show

for such a privileged and well off person, i've managed to make every wrong decision possible. i've made what could have been the easiest life in the world a hellscape. and i only seem to be making it worse. there's a path to make it better, and im following it. surely things can't always be like this, i don't want to be another tragedy.

well, i just felt like this account, which once meant a lot to me, deserved a proper sendoff.

so, there it is.

see you in oregon,

isaac jae

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