watertowr

[watertowr]

Every once and a while I know I’ve whacked a thought right out of the ballpark.

These glossy summer nights, marked entirely by gnats (living) or their smeared carcasses (dead), I get them. I understand them. I birthed them in between my childhood and my long malingering adul(l)thood. No more cheese sandwiches that taste good. No more chalk.

I got tied to a tree, at some point, and was only just able to put my arms around it and thank it on behalf of my breath. I am enthralled with the belief that to recognize is to be freed by. But I come to doubt its truth. I’ve gotten a precipice confused with a porcupine.

On sultry summer evenings I’ve noticed certain species, grown scarce, trot by me, and I whisper a semblance of well wishes after them. a line in the sand that might turn into a prayer. I conjure up a witch hanging from that tree, with branches that look like starving girls, and I tell her that I know she would never dream of eating children. I fend the village off without faulting them for being bewitched.

It’s all discrepancy, and none of it artistic.

So I blow a gasket and all I see come of it is a kind family’s chimney give smoke for the first time, in a winter that no one expected. It’s not the mercy they needed most but in any event, it’s the one they got.

#x

[watertowr]

I am aching for the atmosphere between us to become saturated with torrid keytones, and to tug at us with hints of a subdued frenzy that reveals itself to be a humid passion shaking off its mold and selfish inhibition. One of us imagines dewy patches of moisture collecting on the skin of the others temples and the taut skin which covers the sternum; the secrets of smalls of backs and napes of necks. The delicacy of shoulders, the sultry sturdiness of clavicles that act as dams for the sweet floods of sweat above it. I can smell the strength of avalanches in your sighs. If you are able to bear witness to a blossom in the wintertime, I know I could give you any taste you hungered for. And I know you to taste like every thing, and thus would I be willing to claim the best flavor of them all and call you by that name until you knew it to be true of yourself. You do betray some doubt, as though you do not paint me with crimson. In dreams I plant two petals where your neck and shoulders meet, and bring about desperate eddies of suction, using the salt of your skin for seasoning. You could close your hand around my life and feel it pulse if you chose to. There is a fury of forgotten angels behind your gaze; disbelieved and infrequently summoned, plagued with the memories of fresh garlands turned plastic over time. I must seem quaint or in possession of a juvenile excitement, in which case I might crumble, so intensely have I endeavored to invoke a crease between your eyebrows to rest above a glare of appetite.

Perhaps I have made you out to be such a wild and feral force where you have only thorns, or my ache and your stature are each becoming of the other due only to a coincidence of compatibility and timing. We may prove our own selves wrong by letting down each other, or entangle ourselves with consequences that prove worse than the mundanity of our prior days. But I still will walk through shadows with you lest you prove to be an animal, or desirous of becoming one, now that you have met a kind like me.

[watertowr]

How imperceptibly things disintegrate, how transient our sense of self. No moments are in between - birth is the beginning of decay and to grow is to die slowly. It is widening of the mind during the process that is an appropriate metric of success. A conversation is a comparison of mirrors, and love is admiring someone else’s reflection - the images that correspond to ours and flatter the subject through and in spite of amplification. Our dreams are then puddles, our self esteem mere recursion. We wildly illuminate each other and extend the scope of our views. We oscillate vibrantly and share cyclical patterns. We are planetary weather and I am the sound of the moon ricocheting. Gravity can be symbiotic. Waves are arguments and can be ridden as a wild horse; never broken and able to retain its chemistry as it crashes against itself. And so sand is many memories and sandbars are the recollections that save us quietly. And so you are my favorite seashell. And so the moon is a woman; the world drenches it’s skin in desire for her pull.

[watertowr]

I am isolated by a deep nausea of the soul and harassed inwardly by tangled distortions of personality - this internal life is rich but tragic. It is full of quiet exasperation and disgust with the body, which bulges in a vulgar manner at places where the skin is too soft. I am grotesquely gelatinous; a thin frame cannot alleviate this belief. Gravity shoves the stuffing within me against my bones, and I am always expecting to vomit a mass of snakelike tendons. There is an evilness of feminine energy coursing through reality, an intense intoxication that I will try to dizzy others with. My beliefs taste of blood. My moods are damp, and feel moldy. A mildewed heart above a stomach full of rotting logs. A swamp phantom. Speaking in tongues, disturbing villages in summer - making the heat smell badly. They have to bury their dead deeper when I am there; harrowing her. She of swamp.

[watertowr]

When it is summer I moisten my body with a cold compress and then lay in bed with my window open, like a mouth agape; inhaling fevered night. I let the whimsy of the breeze breathe me dry. It sucks on my hair follicles, caressing each embedded pore and making every arm air erect. On nights of any decency I can see stars and know that some are dead; the sky is an exploding disco ball of entropy and dance. I hear a deer traipse by and visualize dew collecting on its muzzle. The sweet sighing of a thousand nuzzled fawns envelops me. I graze in dreamscapes and drink from saccharine streams, touched by the attention given by endless fox eyes and murmuring rabbits; the whisper of nocturnal wings. There is a gentleness to the cloud cover. It is the patchwork of a billowing quilt, an invitation of deep rest - the sublimity of peaceful slumber. The brevity of the levity bestowed serves to enhance the honor of its nature, the grace of its physics. Midnight winds hum in thanks of sleep and summer, the mists of lunar respiration, the craftsmanship of slumber. My pleasure is crystallized and I reject the edges of intrusive imagery; carcasses and celestial disasters, muscles sensing the potential of atrophy and apocalyptic paralysis. Instead I will kiss each roaming maggot in my thoughts and wish them pleasant dreams. They will metamorphose in an earthy way void of terror and take refuge on a fountain of light cast by embellished lanterns. The ghouls and demons of cognition will drink at a bar with mushroom stools, and feast on berries and oleander. I let my eyes become deep puddles and lilipads, and bathe in blankets of moss and lavender. I am finally becoming part of a tree. A kindness swells in me, respect for the enchantment of evening energy and the dotage of each tender dusk. There are creatures of humble humidity in this place. I have my dwellings too.

[watertowr]

All fingertips are plump roses with endless possible blood-oaths in their futures. They rest on a steering wheel attached to the vehicle that drove God off the road in a high speed pursuit. Televised. God was initially caught out of the corner of an eye, but upon looking, vanished like any object in the periphery; a dream that we are all trying to remember the details of. They disintegrate the second they near clearer focus. Observation changes behavior. Who is watching God? A deity is a particle, it is a lab rat in an uncontrolled environment – it is a dream, a trap, an open door in the bedroom. The wind that blows through it, the breeze - a sighing of trees and cloud cover. The chasing of a god is the slope of a graph approaching infinity. It is not far removed from the familiar and exhausting feelings that come with morning showers, or walking down a flighth of stairs - going somewhere we do not want to go, or do. The sense that if these movements are thought about too closely, our legs will collapse beneath us, or at the very least shake; that we will fall down the steps or hit our heads on wet tile. That we will never find god. If I think too hard about what I am doing I will not be able to do it, my body will fail - so says the mind. Thoughtlessness is required to achieve our goals. For the intricacy undoes if it is marveled at in the midst of action. Observation changes behavior. You cannot watch a god. A shower, a leisurely stroll somewhere I do not want to go or do, a concert pianist who thinks of their hands too much - a deity. A dream.

[watertowr]

a circumstantial self (pt 2)

It is tempting to believe that I overthink and so suffer. And even were it true, it is relevant only in terms of being able to start off at a higher place than most because I understand myself. It is relevant when my insights can be served as justification for behavior, or when I can explain a feeling that I have where most would say “it’s hard to explain” and then why. My firm belief is these are the only differences with me and that many drug addicts and individuals with mood disorders experience these things. I believe it all has to do with misconstruing reality in essence or intensity, and using other people to mitigate. I believe that to PARTIALLY be the reason for patterns of stormy relationships but especially for people who are said to “treat people like objects”, and that the worst of us are caught up in using something to externally regulate our mood that arms us. And what doesn’t harm us?

—

UNFINISHED

#borderline personality disorder

[watertowr]

a circumstantial self (pt 1 of 2)

There is a feathering of the periphery. Sometimes a forking of intent. The undercurrents of future repression glaze over a current experience. We become disoriented. We become better equipped to forget the details at a later time. A conscientious objection to experience; the grand threat to every sense of perception we possess. I find myself in temperate states of dissociation often. I live with alternating kinds of trepidation and potential energy. I tend to pour over what I endure and draw important conclusions from it for others. To then perpetuate them in meaningful channels of connective tissue that at least works from my direction to theirs if not in return, is the noble thing to strive for. To be revolutionary, not reactionary. Some human truths: We inadvertently serve interests, we passively disappoint; reveal ourselves in moments of unwitting transparency that, if noticed in their midst, allow us to see with a starkness of clarity that only befalls such glaringly vulnerable moments human behavior. If we catch these moments we cover up. Perhaps we laugh in a way that seems nearing mania or as though a demons live in our stomachs, who shove up air in pockets to force out ungodly sounds. Some personal truths: To me, a misstep of small talk is a self exorcism of humility. It’s violent. I do not exaggerate my feelings when I say this. I find that security of self and sense of individuality, the kind idiosyncrasies that we imagine might be endearing, or at least make us who we are, become more akin to cellulite in my eyes. They are the stretch marks of our respective distinctions. They become traits that are exhausting to have from situation to situation, to varying degrees each. We look at each other and know that we all suffer, that everybody has, for example, a quiet physical embarrassment or has had one in the past. Something medical, or just body parts we deem ugly. That we’ve all had moments in the mirror that have left us crestfallen. It becomes less cumbersome to think of our own in this light - with the weightlessness of tacit commonality. But still it is a sack to drag around in the muck,an addition to the edge people talk about needing to take off. On bad days these are the things that make us feel isolated and singularly subhuman. Nonhuman. For the utmost ill-adaptive of us all this is what our uniqueness becomes for us; disfigurements, monstrosities - things that other’s celebrate as individuality we lament as the vehicles of alienation and awkward, loathsome garnishments of abject terror and disgust. By we I mean me and people like me. It’s folly to think there aren’t such people and I know some. And if feels exactly as I say and nothing less than that thereof. It is a way of being that is deeper than pessimism and not an attitude but intrinsic nature. All becomes a dichotomy instead of a continuum. The world innately perceived with heightened contrast. No gentleness of shading. Instead, identifying highlights and then red flags. Cliffs and limits, not guiding signs and suggested perimeters. It is not a friendly road but a maze, maybe rigged, with a ghastly presence that permeates throughout. The entirety of life becomes never ending collective of utterly fringe experience. Some hard truths:Stability is not missing from me. It doesn’t merely not eat at the table. The help I need is not getting it back. Rather, there is no room made for it to begin with. It is not an absence felt. There is no outline for where it should nicely fit. There is not place setting. I am weaving in and out of the extremes of consciousness, finding danger at each end and thus racing between one and the other but understanding nothing that isn’t one of the concrete walls at the ends of either. Some sad results: There are implications of having such an internal landscape. There are implications for everybody as to some extent we all must trust a society made up of people that you have no faith in, no understanding of, often full disagreement and rage with. I sometimes need the people that make it up to mitigate my inclinations of belief, my sense of whether or not my behavior and sense of reality is correct, or too black, or too white. In other words Using other people’s reactions to gauge whether or not and the extent to which you are being insane - frenzied, biased, depressive, intolerant, hostile, contrary. We all do this slightly, especially in group settings. And then having to adjust what you take from your perceptions of those reactions, because you know even them to be fundamentally skewed. That is the plight. And so ponder: What metric is there to safely use when what you are trying to measure is so difficult as it is to quantify, or even define? When your internal sense of situations is incorrect or overblown, how can you make a decision? A life-changing choice or course of action? Only knowing the faultiness of your inclinations because of what you have been told, and how you have been told, and how many people have told you, and the esteem in which you hold some of them, makes one feel out of control. And then having to accept what you are being told! What challenge to the ego and sense of self and sense of reality that such an acceptance represents! I believe people fear therapy for this reason. And then rarely knowing yourself what is outlandish in your mind, what is or is not a distortion, what is it isn’t based in reality. I and others am presented with these problems not just because deep thinking and philosophy has presented them. It is not all a byproduct of intensely introspective tendencies. It is not due to overindulgence in analysis of the same. A crucial point: We are brought to these dilemmas because we have been led to them with such a pervasive and disruptive patterns of behavior and thinking, and we believe it because of how often we’ve been told by those we trust. It is just that some cannot accept the truth of it and remain oblivious, never to struggle with the implications and also never to change. And so without any direction, what do people do in such a situation? Deeply trust a small few for advice and whose reactions you must unconditionally accept there to be merit in, because of who they are. To partially on others for your sense of self and reality. And the obvious pitfalls, woeful and maddening. What if they are the wrong few, or just plain wrong? What if they are having a bad day when you come to them with something crucial? What if you are causing their bad day and deliberately mislead you? What if they are mad at you? What if they choose to lie? All of these things begin to mean something very significant for you when you need this person to help you correctly interpret and navigate the world. The more intelligent a person is, the more frightening this becomes. This is but an illustration of what I feel the roots of some kinds of paranoia are. When people influence you greatly, it becomes terrifying. What impacts them then influences you so deeply on top of everything else that does. And then still it must all of undergo the muddying waters of interpersonal conveyance. What if there is only one person you can rely on for such an incomprehensibly important role, an innately unhealthy role that so many would refuse to fill, a role that takes so much time and energy, predicated on such an immense amount of trust? And of course, what if they die? Such projection is necessary when it’s relevant to self protection beyond grief. ***The dysfunctional patterns of behavior, sense of self, and relationships seen in people with BPD and with myself I believe to all stem from fundamental misconstruing of reality, and the inclination to form intense relationships that involve such multifaceted reliance on another person that it results in. It also inherently merits the propensity for interpersonal disaster for all involved. It is a vicious cycle; Implications for lability of mood, etc, can essentially be gleaned. I think this extends beyond myself and I am merely aware of it. An amplification of social instinct*And so if I become suspicious and paranoid it is because of the extent to which have to rely on others. If something goes wrong it is natural to wonder if perhaps it is because I am being lied to or have been led astray. An easy example: you don’t like your body and struggle with it. You’ve been trying to lose weight but can’t tell if you’ve improved - you aren’t fat but you want to be skinny. You ask your boyfriend if you are thin and he says yes. “Really? You’d think that if you saw me in the street, a stranger?” “Yes, I would”. Later someone compliments you: “I love curvy women! Thick thighs save lives! Women are too skinny nowadays”. You feel lied to by your boyfriend. That paranoia can shut one off from helpful interpretations of reality from other people that need to be heard and understood, because some often cannot do it for themselves. And so of course it gets worse - it’s a perfect storm. The paranoia sometimes seeps into what I must fundamentally accept in order to have any hope of functioning, which is that my feelings and perceptions often to do not reflect at the very the intensity of what is truly going on or the actuality of what is at hand in general. If I respond as if they did, my behavior would not seem quite right. On emptiness and self:Feelings of emptiness sometimes exist because the extent confusion experienced merits a sense of absence - something that is ever-changing can less malleable and more fluid. In this case it is, in fact, going to cease being thought of or interacted with as a solid. Such is my sense of self. This is always true but often merely distinctly felt. Emptiness can be felt more acutely and intensely, due to contrast. I sometimes only can understand things when they are contrasted, starkly, with another. I can only perceive and understand them because they stick out like a sore thumb - like only being able to see a silhouette because there is a bright light bombarding objects enshrouded in darkness. And so feelings of emptiness can be worse when I am, for example, where I grew up, or feeling physically good, or with somebody who loves me very much or is being especially affectionate. By comparison to the depth of emotion I understand to be there or can indeed sense, I feel deeply void in a fundamental place because of the comparison. Sadness and joy become paradoxical. The the outlines of who I am become external and flimsy; circumstantial evidence that I am me. Other people seem to understand who I am much better than I can. To me I do not have a consistent core other than lability, a perfectly confusing oxymoron especially when it comes to something as important as sense of self. “It really must be hopeless if I feel like this when good things are happening all around me!” Having teeth extracted presents the unique dilemma, if done correctly: experiencing no or little pain, but knowing that you truly very much should be. That without numbing it would be intolerably excruciating. That the pressure is the strength with which your tooth is being pulled on from your very skeletal structure, roots and all. You aren’t in pain, but isn’t it scary?

#only a working title #mainly a lengthy diary entry

[watertowr]

You are revolutionary: a call to you(th) through the cracks in the system; a brief guide to moral outrage

elative choice is not a free choice. Beware of illusions of power - ours and theirs. When you find you’ve been ingrained with lies do not be angry with yourself. Be angry at them with a capital “T”. Know that this anger will be called unpatriotic. Revel in the hypocricy. Know it is the norm. For we do not all realize that cycles are inflicted upon us deliberately by those in control. Don’t call others paranoid. Aim for awakedness. Force your dissatisfaction to spur you onward for the alternative is to be stunted and that is how we inadvertently serve those who do not have our best interests at heart. Know the difference between what you claim and what you own, what you claim and what you choose. Picture a drug dealer and ask why that’s what he looks like. Picture a rape victim and ask why that’s what she looks like, and then a wealthy businessman and do the same. Picture a thug and ask why that is what he looks like - and always ask “whos interests does this serve?” See crimes of desperation as adaptation to a rigged game, used to affirm the stereotypes that keep people down. See that there is money to be made from this. It is deliberate and not opportunistic. See that recidivism is a cash flow. That the prison-industrial complex is modern slavery. Ask why the victims have no credibility and who’s interests it serves. Never use the few to characterize all - they are proof of an inflicted cycle and not evidence of accurate stereotypes . See that stigma is a weapon. Oppression is systemic. Injustice is institutionalized. Question who you’ve been led to hate and why. Understand the relativity of choice - know that true freedom is not ours and is an illusion. Our freedom is relative to their control. Do not settle for it. And so the saying goes, “if you aren’t angry, you aren’t paying attention”. War isn’t humanitarian and cannot be. Be afraid that it can be believably portrayed for something other than what it is. Know that if it seems too perfectly coincidental, it is not and in fact is masterminded. They will have you believe otherwise. Know yourself and trust yourself. Allow others to call you insane - that means you are onto something. You are doing a good job. Do it quietly. Find other people. Use safe sounding boards. Question your information. Some will attempt to justify history instead of fix things moving forward. Their ego cannot confront the injustice for what it is. They are your opposite. The goal is not your redemption it is progress. Use information to ask more questions. Ask why things are the way things are. And then ask yourself why you have to ask. When you find things you do not like, then act. Differentiate symptoms and problem. Address both. Your altruism is never a fault. Your empathy is never a weakness. Refuse to ever allow someone else to demonize your passion for justice. Never dampen your passions or redirect it where it isn’t deserved. Never engage it less or be embarrassed by it. Their anger is born of insecurity - love in spite of this. You exemplify love. Do not understimate hatred, ignorance, maliciousness, stigma. Be courageous. Be willing to lose friends as you will find that your authenticity frightens people and your moral outrage frightens people. Be willing to be a figurehead if need be, with all the pitfalls. Know you will be called argumentative. Too focused on negativity. Sullen. Belligerent. If you are a woman - hysterical. Know you will be dismissed often. So utterly and deeply know the truth of yourself. Know that these people are controlled, docile, complacent, complicit. Do not be tempted by the pleasures of their ignorance. It is an ultimate failing of self. It is at other people’s expense. It is for their gain. That is what they want, but you are on fire. If they were awake, they would be you. Your awareness is against all odds. You are a product of their failure and so a triumph of humanity. Refuse your own socialization. It was based on oppression. Your dissent is righteous and passionate. You are deeply resilient by right. Be revolutionary and not reactionary. Do the things we all assume the other will do so that we do not have to. Change starts with the masses and so change starts with the individual. Create a dialogue whenever you can. Watch every body. Suffer boldly. Accept that some will never change their mindsets but others that might are listening. Make others think about what they believe in. Do this quietly too. Accept that the shadows on the wall are more comforting and that to see the objects as they are requires you to be on the frontier. Try to bring others out of the cave without being resentful of their desire to cling to the familiar. It is their nature. It is your nature, but you are willing to live wildly. Be heroic. Bring attention to ignorance. True racism and misogyny is insidious. Try not to be initially abrasive - you want them to listen. After that, don’t hesitate to be. They are allowed to know you’re angry. Some lives are more rigged for failure than others. See the banana peels and how carefully placed they are. The more they want to keep you down, the more power is intrinsic to you. Their resistance is a sign that your truth is a threat. Stand up for somebody else. Do it every day. Allow yourself to be hated and learn from who hates you. Where the hatred comes from, who it protects, who it hurts. What it is about you that threatens them. Ask them about it. You are speaking the truths that they know in their heads but have buried in their hearts. Refuse to find comfort in ignorance. Refuse to let the pain of reality justify blindness. Learn to revel in your anguish for it makes you work to make it less. Do not forget about the future. Pave the way for other people. Teach your children what you know now and not what you were taught. Know that others watching are learning from you and being inspired. Be known for it. Show other people that it is okay to stand up for what you believe in unapologetically and face to face with those who disagree. Disagree loudly. Ask them the questions you’ve asked. Be informative. Ask them to ask more. Ask yourself to ask more of them. Find your people and talk to them. They exist. Be the vehicle of change. Make a pedestal for yourself and use it. Use your judgement but take risks. Understand that being awake is often called radicalism. Purge yourself of stigma - toward yourself and other people. Take circumstances into consideration. Be careful of where you choose to be arbitrary. Be wary of institutionalized arbitrariness. Read between the lines. Foresee the ways by which we may be oppressed. Be aware of the implications of every choice made and not just those that impact you. Imagine yourself in the shoes of every person you meet and in every news story you here. Know that everyone thinks it cannot happen to them. It can happen to you. Possess a capacity to empathize that staggers you. Don’t turn off the TV. Refuse to be desensitized. Every act against humanity is an act against you. But you have a secret and will change things from the inside out. You will not become embittered, but seasoned and wise. Know both what you stand for and what you are up against. Don’t dehumanize your rivals. Find the roots of their prejudice and hatred. Know fear when you see it. Do not covet notoriety. Go undetected for what you are until you are not able. People will try to stop you, and quickly. You’ve slipped through the cracks of their system. You are emblazoned with rebellious kindness and question their leadership and so they have failed. See the maliciousness in bureaucracy. Refuse to be a robot. Do not think in “good” and “evil”. Decide what you believe to be inexcusable. Ask yourself why. Ask yourself how you’d feel about you if you were in charge. Understand the threat you embody. Then rise to meet it. And be prepared: the abyss you fight will learn your name. And it should - you are one act away from being revolutionary