Fixation

I don't even know what attracts me to a person, but, well, I don't have to, in light of the pull. I don't know if they somehow make me aspire toward ideals for my own being, and then wanting to keep them around as a model, to be at a vantage point to their deepest. Or the cruelty that comes and goes with rigorous awareness (inner/outer) would, I might hope, be softened by the person's softness. Or if all attraction starts with a mutual edge, whether the attracted and attractor know it or not, that to attract means to cultivate something attractive, that to be attractive is to want attraction. And I hope the last is true, that I'm being begged to beg.

I wonder about having a life-long partner. Until now I've known attraction and fixation, however I may say and convince myself that I 'love' the partners I've 'loved.' Could that monogamy be the search for balance? The most intense form of companionship? I can't let it be reduced to that: love has to be, in some way, fulfilling the part that wasn't even evidently missing. What the fuck is love.

January 29/30 Dream

I awoke climbing a slowly curving staircase. At the top, to my right, was a wall of glass facing a wide river and some barges, a patio cafe, and to my left a magnificent tank. A huge eye passed me, followed by the mass of a sperm whale. I wasn't alone and the place had the structure of an organized aquarium--swirling light, quiet babies, carpet. I leaned against a rail to the back of me and saw that the tank extended for about the length of two or three football fields, several hundred feet deep. Sperm whales, humpbacks, rights, at the far end a blue whale drifting while the others circled it. And at the bottom, I could feel from the darkness there, Leviathan melvillei, lurking.

I'm Bussing 4

I like smoking so much. Unlike weed where you linger on the feeling, cigarettes force awareness of input to the body, the circulation between the world and myself, where my reality conflicts or harmonizes with the state of things that ultimately wraps me but doesn't matter.

Poetry is for writing what can't be written.

I even think I sing a little better having smoked before I practice, either adding a burning traction that I might better control my wind, or slicking my throat to flow more freely. I can't decide, but the idea of a "smokey voice" is less an accent than it is a utility, for me a provision of confidence that my chords, passed hourly by chemicals, are changing--a second, isolated puberty that in some way extends to the renaissance accompanying a deliberate attempt to smoke, to understand, to grow.

But I'm a little more jittery so my penmanship is getting worse, exchanging my voice for my hands, one medium for another. And I like it so much, though my hands constantly smell of smoke.

This Face, This Shell

Longevity

How long is life? Rather than approach the question from the natural inclination of "long" as length in its entire spectrum, approach it as long. Does a human life maybe extend too far, overstaying its welcome for both this worldly latice and its host, the person who might have not necessarily deserved death sooner than it was granted, but for whom their stay was prolonged? Of course, anyone attached to life (I propose this is just about everyone) would say a life extends as far as it can, maybe even that death comes no later or sooner than its perfect deadline. Could death, the definition of punctual, be late?

And my willingness to die might give me an approximate time of death.

If it were down to allowing women and children off a sinking ship at my expense, I think I would have the capacity to calm my thinking, appreciate the flattest expanse that is my own life, and willingly wade into the water. I can imagine that moment now, but I also cannot.

Since we do not know what death is, it is illogical for us fear it. It might be very nice. -Guildenstern

Crushed

I'm watching a guy flirt. The focus's back is to me, her coffee curls dripping down her back, and, having seen her around the campus, I know she's gorgeous. A cute friend to the girl is seated nearby, but this guy has eyes only for one of them. He smiles too much. He laughs a little too easily. His mind is blank. His eyes stare despite him. He scratches his chin and adjusts himself on his crutches, and for his sake I hope some sympathy builds.

I don't remember the last time I flirted with a stranger or crush, though I'm familiar and very aware of the blank mind that accompanies nervous attempts at being casual. What bullshit.

ib3

Naturally, I try to write immediately after a cig for its buzz (immediacy, as necessary to writing). I like the feeling more than marijuana, though I do need to shit after almost every smoking break. Regular air isn't enough anymore. And there's some beauty to the glow of a cigarette, as well as the kind of confidence it bestows, like a pair of brass knuckles makes someone secure to where their relaxed and clear impression lends a dangerous beauty. Or like a wasp. I'm babbling. Nicotine.

Returning home from Nine Roses and a satisfying meal, I lit a cigarette and admitted to Rudy my new habit. He and Rob poked at me for it, and the explanation I had ready at hand was, "I'm curious," though I also had to admit how silly ("douchebag") it was to say so. It doesn't matter, I'm enjoying it, and some insight is starting to accumulate. I don't know if I'm above the addiction, as I did before.

Haptics, A Compendium

Rudy and I have corresponding tattoos, and while not haptic necessarily, we can't deny the unity of skin that extends to our sense of each other, essentially touching from far away.

My dad's hugs have gotten warmer, closer. I remember the breakdown almost ten years ago when I accused him of being ashamed of me, disappointed in his son, even in himself for having wasted time, as I thought he was. And I remember the desperate hug we shared in my room. Now he pats my back when we embrace, he holds my shoulders, he rubs my head.

Mary is the softest person to have ever graced human skin.

My crush on Emma died with winter, but last night we had our first instance of contact: a hug when I entered the bar, a pat when I stole a sex-red tape for her, maybe rekindling something in the coldness. She no longer seems so frigid.

Whenever I see Marc, whether we're high or not, he puts his fist up and bends his wrist. We dap.

I'd like to put another here, but I'm realizing how seldom I'm touched.

I'm Buzzing 2

I sat outside my apartment with music and two cigarettes, a glass of water, a chill, closed eyes, open eyes, black trees, a blacker sky, a growing appreciation for solitude, the beat. If nothing else, I can see how cigarettes are craved as a medium for contemplation, or its imitation.

God damn! I feel dangerous when smoking. Poor soul! whoever threatens me while I'm on my lawn chair, demanding my contents, getting tobacco embers to the eye before I snatch his gun, break his ribs, pummel his nose, and shoot his knee. It's the nicotine talking. I'm sweet. What is this turning me into?

Keeping Still

The most difficult thing to convincingly write about is a matter which I feel rather than know. It's easy to write of, but convincingly-- not so much. How do I impart something I can't grasp, something that relies on a sympathetic or commiserate feeling and the charm of my attempt at its transcription, however evocative? Cortazar may have provided an inlet for that which sits deepest in the soul, but still, it's an amateur writer's dilemma: the tendency to dwell on the sharpness of something in the soul even when dwelling on it doesn't sharpen the understanding.

At this writing, I can't keep still.

*Then again, "Damn understanding more than anything else," said D.H Lawrence.

I'm Buzzing

It's surging molten sludge. I'm describing my first in&exhale of cigarette smoke, my first volume (100-120ml), and its invigorating yet dizzying effect. Walking out of Walgreens with my $6 purchase of Marlboro 100s and a Bic lighter, I was approached by a sagging teenager, asked for some help getting some food in me, sir? Sorry, man, no cash. I lit up then and there, the yellowing filter matching the soul it's saving.

So begins the molten, sludgy experiment on my own body and soul (I equate the mind and soul), an experiment that takes place in a compressed chamber with alien air pumped through vents high along the ceiling. My throat burns when I pull, but the nicotine affects me instantly and I swoon a bit, drugged. Like sex, I can't find a consistent craving for it, but love it during the fact, so I'm still wondering whether this test of will is really going to happen.

Everything is real. I had to convince myself a little bit, but yea, everything is real.