when we made a god of the revolution and it did not come for us.

so i will be the first to admit it. we’ve had our ins and outs and our ups and downs. we’ve not exactly been consistent. there was a time when i believed in you whole heartedly, with all my teenage being. you were going to get me out of this world, and you were going to carry us all into a place where we could be happy, and safe, and everyone else would have to admit we were right, once and for all. and after all this torture and punishment for your cause, we’d have won the peace we swore was coming all along. i believed in you so badly it hurt. everything i did was for you. i brushed my teeth, i dived in dumpsters and gave away my belongings freely in your name.
i went to sleep every night excited for the changes the next day would bring.
i prepared enthusiastically for your eventual arrival, me and my friends, drinking, sitting around, singing our songs in your name. it was an exciting time and we were excited people, depending on your homecoming.

but you did not come.
night after night i laid waiting and you did not come.
in my drafty bedroom, aching with bruises, you did not come.
in the back seat of the car on the spare lot, you did not come.
in the parking lot of the mall,
in the hopsital,
in the home,
in the halls of the school,
and in my dorm you did not come.
and i was left all alone, defenseless and laughed at.

i won’t lie to you. it was hard to believe in you then, and those 2 or 3 years were the darkest of my life. the moment when my belief had faded from proud, to simply quiet and private to nothing at all. i was alone with myself, and nothing was coming to my rescue. nothing would make all of this worth it. it would not weigh out into bigger or better things. it was meaningless, null and void, and i was hip deep and the water was rising.

i slept a lot for those years. i faded in and out of life. i made myself up into something i was not. i convinced myself my old ideas were child’s play. my brain ticked routinely in my robot body, and every beat of my heart said ‘all for naught.’
i knew how the people of israel felt then. i was surely lost in the desert and no god would extend his fingers and point my way home.
another dress. another lipstick. another paper and another three hour nap.

i dropped out of school and told my mother i couldn’t figure out what happened to me. i couldn’t piece it together. i used to be bright and brave, and now i was scared of everything. fading fast. a rumpled thing with a crooked haircut and dirty clothes i hated in an overpriced apartment with things i did not want or need. i didn’t know where i had gone so horribly wrong.
and then i felt it.
small and quiet at first and then louder in behind the beats of my sad heart in my chest.
freedom.

slow at first and then gaining speed until it was uncontrollable, and i was shocked at the way you came back to me. whisked me up in your arms, sent me to others like us, and promised me you were coming, you had come, you would collect the others soon but for now it was our time and we ought to prepare because this is just the beginning.
please tell me this just the beginning.
tell me i need to prepare.

we can get most anywhere without going anywhere.

I have this city like a heart attack. It sneaks up on me every day that I catch myself smiling to no one, walking to work, your songs in my ears, wrapped about my throat like warm fingers. The catching feeling laying there, light and pale. Driftwood. Bits of string. Things I find on the ground and left behind in my pockets that I can loop around my wrists. I walk, jangling and clicking with these adornments.

These grins are upon my facial muscles before I can stop them, and half staring absently into the eyes of strangers. My mouth brims and my cheeks burn and there is nothing I can do to give the feeling an end.

i can feel it.

we were alone when we went into the city. it was a little different than you had pictured it, but i told you there was no point in minding too much.
you know how these things go. and besides, we had all been together when we left. me with my broke down sneakers, and the pants with the patches on the knees and the old hoodie. some kid left over and ready for a fight. you with the sweater he gave you. our eyes were black from crying and exhaustion and the overwhelming sensation of enthusiasm.

“there are more of us out there,” you told me, pointing wildly as we slouched down st. cats. “i can feel it.”
i can feel it.
i put my hand over my heart, over my eyes, over my mouth and i can feel it.
this lovely grown up club for two that we’ve established, and i can feel it like the freight trains and free rides we’ve long for, thundering through my body and coming out of my chest.
promises.
tires.
tracks.
whatever.
run down soles of over priced badly made shoes.
whatever.
thumb holes coated in grime and snot.
whatever.
a whole lot of whatever and a whole lot of no more biding time as something pulls our bodies forward, a coffee and fuck off fueled exodus.

i can eat later.
i can sleep when i am dead.
i can sit up reading for days.
i can find these other bodies. i can make sense of these other maps that lead us back to each other and lead me right to you, hand in hand, the same wild eyes face.
i can feel it.

calmly waiting to make you my lamb.

sometimes all you need to do is lie on your living room floor and sing along to the songs blaring on your stereo.

The Second Sex.

So I did it. I went to see the Sex and the City movie. On opening night. If you know me, you know I have conflicted feelings about Sex and the City. On the one hand, it’s a hilarious satire of living life in your 20’s as acted out by women much older. Life becomes a focus of yourself, your friends, your clothes and who you’re sleeping with. My friends and I have talked about the things that Carrie and the girls voice concern over, and many other similar topics, such as what do you call out during sex if the guy you are dating has a terrible name? Serious business indeed.

On the other hand, Sex and the City has created a new breed of female misogynist, one who treats others like she does not wish to be treated, commoditizing herself through the men she sleeps with and the shoes she owns. As a life style, Sex and the City is not empowerment, it is not girl power. It’s fucking and being fucked, it’s excess, it’s looking for a lot of material and visceral pleasures to fill an emotional and spiritual void. It’s not learning about yourself… it’s almost vile. Girls parade around in overpriced shoes with hard heads, unexplored souls and hearts filled to the brim with hats and purses and dresses, and nary a meaningful relationship to support them. Of course, that is part of what makes the show so fun.

Taken in stride, and with a grain of salt, Sex and the City is what every girl wants to be. A fabulous life in New York, amazing clothes, a string of handsome lovers and our own fabulously decorated apartments. Loneliness aside, it’s the Disney Princess Story for big girls with a higher budget. As I walked home from the theatre with my roommate to our much cheaper apartment in a less fashionable part of town, in worn out shoes, a used jacket, in a dress I got for free, swinging the purse I picked up from the army navy store on my arm, my life felt very different than Carrie Bradshaw’s. However in many ways, it’s still the same, and there is something comforting about that, for me and every woman who watches the series. I’m allowed to want sex, and freedom, and high fashion. It’s ok to be that way. I don’t need to get married and have children. I don’t need to fit into any number of traditional roles. I just can’t let my life become an excessive emotional void, either.

felt you in my legs.

I’ve been thinking a lot about why I take pictures lately, and why I draw and collage and do all these things I do. The best I can figure is it all comes back to some weird misplaced sense of nostalgia amongst all the noise, and I am desperately looking for someone to share it with. It’s like my rant about God. We all have these holes we are trying to fill where these big glorious ideas of God would have been two or three hundred years ago. Now we’re lost amongst the mess with our drugs and our liquor and our notions of giving our lives a higher meaning. Sometimes it’s a little heavy, being me. But then, maybe you knew that.

Lately, I am overwhelmed in the best way possible. I see all these pretty little moments and I want to save them. I want to tuck them under my mattress. I want to display them, I want to see them again so I can look back and see where I was at the time. I will stare at these photos until my meaning becomes clear, until I can see what I was looking for at the base of all this excess. To understand what will fill my space where God might have gone, and to see what I have chosen to do with all that doesn’t fit. To see where my puzzle will take me.

It sounds sad, maybe, but it’s not. It sounds isolating, and quite frankly it is. But none of it is bad. None of it is scary.