Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York
"You're like see through. I don't see you. I don't need you." DIE ANTWOORD
"Why do you torture yourself?" she asked as I lay there digging through the pain.
"Because I've been cut too deep," I said.
"You get what you ask for."
She doesn't call. She doesn't call. She doesn't call...
I haven't slept. I toss in the darkness. The apartment is a cage. Sirens blaze by outside the windows. Images flash through my mind. I try to push them away, bury them. I've sweated through the sheets. I push them off the bed. My skin burns. I get up. I pace the shotgun rooms. I want to break something. I want it to end. I picture throwing the television out the fucking window. My head throbs. I knock the fucking lamp over. Sparks shower the floor. I feel sick. I lay down on the couch. It's impossible. I'm shaking. Something pulses from my gut through my body to the tips of my fingers. I need to get out of here. My arms are tingling as I flex my hands over and over again. My teeth grind. The TV is on but all I hear is screaming fucking noise. I picture putting my fist through the screen. I get up and turn it off. I can smell my own stench. I unclench and clench my fists. There is an indefinable ache in the center of my mind. I'm full of venom. The fans twist. The AC pushes stale air. I have nowhere to go.
I cried when she found my pain today. Afterward I spit up blood on the sidewalk as the sun died behind the skyscrapers. What are you staring at? I'll fuckin' hurt you. He slowly looked away. The dead fish rotted in the heat. The pain in my gut rose, called out for attention as I walked aimlessly through the crowded streets searching for the subway.
The tunnels dripped the sweat of thousands of burnt out lives. The air was a damp shroud. People yelled, knocking into each other in the suffocating bowels.
Dazed, I stared lost, at a little girl, quiet in the stroller, as her mother brushed the damp hair out of her moist eyes trying to balance herself as the train rocked back and forth. The rails screeched to halt. I got out. I had no idea where I was.
She isn't home. I try to call. Nothing. I want to break something. My head aches. I wait and I wait. It's late. She's not coming. I push the fears away. It's him. I sweat in the darkness. It's okay.The sirens wail. The dogs howl below. Let it go. It's not what you think. Fuck. It's a full moon out. I have to get out of here. I have nowhere to go.
The phone rings. I hear some guy laughing in the background say her name. The tension snaps. I'll break something. I'll fucking break this...
Monday, 28 June 2010
Saturday, 26 June 2010
I Am
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York
I am a loser.
I have a job.
I've accomplished nothing with my life.
I am a good person.
I've done nothing of note.
I am a good friend.
I have no money.
I keep my things nice.
I am not fashionable.
I eat well.
I have no property or valuable things.
I have nice teeth.
I whine.
I listen.
I have no innate talents.
I am sincere.
I am not really good at anything.
I have a good sense of humor.
I am boring.
I care about animals.
I am not dependable.
I am dependable.
I am crazy.
I am sane.
I am confused.
I see clearly.
I am troubled.
I have a good sense of humor.
I am depressive.
I like to have fun.
I am a downer.
I am amazing.
I am jealous.
I am trustworthy.
I am a monster.
I am a saint.
I am insecure.
I am cocksure.
I have nothing to offer.
I care.
I am mutilated.
I am handsome.
I am lost.
I am righteous.
I am negative.
I am devout.
I am aggressive.
I am passive.
I am lazy.
I am driven.
I lie.
I tell the truth.
Love
I am a loser.
I have a job.
I've accomplished nothing with my life.
I am a good person.
I've done nothing of note.
I am a good friend.
I have no money.
I keep my things nice.
I am not fashionable.
I eat well.
I have no property or valuable things.
I have nice teeth.
I whine.
I listen.
I have no innate talents.
I am sincere.
I am not really good at anything.
I have a good sense of humor.
I am boring.
I care about animals.
I am not dependable.
I am dependable.
I am crazy.
I am sane.
I am confused.
I see clearly.
I am troubled.
I have a good sense of humor.
I am depressive.
I like to have fun.
I am a downer.
I am amazing.
I am jealous.
I am trustworthy.
I am a monster.
I am a saint.
I am insecure.
I am cocksure.
I have nothing to offer.
I care.
I am mutilated.
I am handsome.
I am lost.
I am righteous.
I am negative.
I am devout.
I am aggressive.
I am passive.
I am lazy.
I am driven.
I lie.
I tell the truth.
Love
Friday, 25 June 2010
There's A Lot To Be Said For Staying In One Place And Building Something
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York
A guy at work last night said that Austin was full of whiners. I laughed and told him that New York was full of insincerity, that the default attitude here seems to be guarded defense and condescension, whereas the default attitude toward people, in Austin, seems to me to be openness and curiosity. Call that whiny if you want. "Doesn't that make you sad?" he asked. "Like a dagger to my fucking heart man." He laughed at this.
The night and people wore on in secure drunken obliviousness as girls preened with feigned indifference as guys posed with pompous attitude. Insincere stances attracting insincere advances.
A young actress with a stern and serious face came in looking like a normal girl, meeting up with a tall and austere, self important man with a cold stare who looked like he sold peoples lives for a living.
After midnight I retreated into my mind.
Around 1am someone called me over to a crowd that had gathered by the bathrooms where a tall man in his early forties with a shaved head leaned into a dazed and frightened looking woman berating her. "What would you think if I went into a bathroom with a woman and locked the door? Huh!" he demanded. He gripped his hands behind his back restraining himself as he leaned further into her. She had no response as people stared and the man restated his question louder, lost in his rage, the woman lost in fear as I put my hand on the man's shoulder. "It's time to leave..."
2 o' clock in the morning. I hid in the shadows thinking of Marie at the Waterfall house Upstate, wondering if we would re-engage in the peaceful environment if I were there, or if our problems were manifestations of thought, our dance, that would follow us wherever we went. I thought about running, leaving, knowing it wouldn't change a thing. I thought of Austin, New Orleans, New York, wondering to what extent environment has an effect on our behavior. Just then I got a text from a friend in Austin who moved from New York City, "You're just homesick," it said, "not romanticizing - Austin and environs are romantic. New York can be cold. You just wanna home somewhere."
I woke this afternoon to the cool breeze of the air conditioner. I looked at my phone, 'missed call Upstate,' it read. I felt a sense of relief as I lay, cool and comfortable in bed and called Upstate. It was hard to hear her on the phone. She felt far away, the other side of the world. Her mind sounded unsettled and her voice slightly severe as we searched for each other through private fears. I pictured the large house surrounded by woods and the waterfall in the background. She said I sounded good... better, I think she meant. I can make this work, I thought as she talked about a book of mine she took with her and change. "It's a good time to change," she said.
She didn't say, I love you, in response before the line went dead, but she rarely does on the phone. I got up and put coffee on then checked my inbox, a line catching my attention in a an email sent from the author of the book that Marie had talked about - "There's a lot to be said for staying in one place and building something." http://therumpus.net/
Love
A guy at work last night said that Austin was full of whiners. I laughed and told him that New York was full of insincerity, that the default attitude here seems to be guarded defense and condescension, whereas the default attitude toward people, in Austin, seems to me to be openness and curiosity. Call that whiny if you want. "Doesn't that make you sad?" he asked. "Like a dagger to my fucking heart man." He laughed at this.
The night and people wore on in secure drunken obliviousness as girls preened with feigned indifference as guys posed with pompous attitude. Insincere stances attracting insincere advances.
A young actress with a stern and serious face came in looking like a normal girl, meeting up with a tall and austere, self important man with a cold stare who looked like he sold peoples lives for a living.
After midnight I retreated into my mind.
Around 1am someone called me over to a crowd that had gathered by the bathrooms where a tall man in his early forties with a shaved head leaned into a dazed and frightened looking woman berating her. "What would you think if I went into a bathroom with a woman and locked the door? Huh!" he demanded. He gripped his hands behind his back restraining himself as he leaned further into her. She had no response as people stared and the man restated his question louder, lost in his rage, the woman lost in fear as I put my hand on the man's shoulder. "It's time to leave..."
2 o' clock in the morning. I hid in the shadows thinking of Marie at the Waterfall house Upstate, wondering if we would re-engage in the peaceful environment if I were there, or if our problems were manifestations of thought, our dance, that would follow us wherever we went. I thought about running, leaving, knowing it wouldn't change a thing. I thought of Austin, New Orleans, New York, wondering to what extent environment has an effect on our behavior. Just then I got a text from a friend in Austin who moved from New York City, "You're just homesick," it said, "not romanticizing - Austin and environs are romantic. New York can be cold. You just wanna home somewhere."
I woke this afternoon to the cool breeze of the air conditioner. I looked at my phone, 'missed call Upstate,' it read. I felt a sense of relief as I lay, cool and comfortable in bed and called Upstate. It was hard to hear her on the phone. She felt far away, the other side of the world. Her mind sounded unsettled and her voice slightly severe as we searched for each other through private fears. I pictured the large house surrounded by woods and the waterfall in the background. She said I sounded good... better, I think she meant. I can make this work, I thought as she talked about a book of mine she took with her and change. "It's a good time to change," she said.
She didn't say, I love you, in response before the line went dead, but she rarely does on the phone. I got up and put coffee on then checked my inbox, a line catching my attention in a an email sent from the author of the book that Marie had talked about - "There's a lot to be said for staying in one place and building something." http://therumpus.net/
Love
Thursday, 24 June 2010
Lover's Discourse
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York
I wake with a burning headache. The bed feels like it's on fire. I can't move. I have to buy an A/C unit today, I think as I lay in the sweltering heat. I can't sleep like this anymore.
I shuffle through the blanketing heat of the apartment, sweating in my boxers. I feel a longing in an indefinable part of me. The apartment feels empty. Marie is gone for the weekend. Maybe it's for the best, I think. Something is amiss between us. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's us. Maybe it's not important what it is, but that it's happening.
I check my email, the fans twisting like satellites searching for a far away signal. I scan for her name in the inbox. I think of emailing her. She won't call me, I think. I'm not calling her either. I have nothing to say. Heat and light pulse through the windows. I follow a link to an article, reading the line, "...the lover’s discourse is today of an extreme solitude.” It sears me. I feel us drifting away from each other unsure of the direction we're heading.
I throw on some clothes, put my sunglasses on, walk out the door and descend into the all encompassing heat in a daze as I hit the street. Cars honk as I weave down the littered sidewalk. Music blasts from shop windows and kids shriek as the traffic from the BQE blasts its discontent from the overpass up ahead. I stop in the new corner cafe for a coffee at the foot of the bridge. The place feels stale and uninviting. I walk to Broadway with my iced coffee trying to wake, looking for a store that sells A/C's. The elevated train SCREECHES overhead. A group of young toughs on the corner make aggressive movements relating a story, pointing their cigarettes for emphasis. Young girls talk loudly into their phones. Street vendors haggle with customers. Someone screams out of their car window as they round the corner and the coffee moves violently through me. A bus stops in front of me as I try to cross the street blowing a noxious cloud of fumes, enveloping me as I realize that I've left my wallet back in the apartment. I turn around suddenly thinking of Marie as the surroundings dissipate into a silent scream. Something somewhere lost inside of me feels like crying, but nothing comes. The sadness is silent, unseen, yet as present as the air around me. The emotion takes too much physical energy to form as I shield myself from my surroundings. The sun beats down and I feel like I'm losing her, us, as I walk back to the apartment the demons of doubt tearing at me from the inside, feasting on the black pain under the glaring sun as sweat trickles down my forehead.
Love.
I wake with a burning headache. The bed feels like it's on fire. I can't move. I have to buy an A/C unit today, I think as I lay in the sweltering heat. I can't sleep like this anymore.
I shuffle through the blanketing heat of the apartment, sweating in my boxers. I feel a longing in an indefinable part of me. The apartment feels empty. Marie is gone for the weekend. Maybe it's for the best, I think. Something is amiss between us. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's us. Maybe it's not important what it is, but that it's happening.
I check my email, the fans twisting like satellites searching for a far away signal. I scan for her name in the inbox. I think of emailing her. She won't call me, I think. I'm not calling her either. I have nothing to say. Heat and light pulse through the windows. I follow a link to an article, reading the line, "...the lover’s discourse is today of an extreme solitude.” It sears me. I feel us drifting away from each other unsure of the direction we're heading.
I throw on some clothes, put my sunglasses on, walk out the door and descend into the all encompassing heat in a daze as I hit the street. Cars honk as I weave down the littered sidewalk. Music blasts from shop windows and kids shriek as the traffic from the BQE blasts its discontent from the overpass up ahead. I stop in the new corner cafe for a coffee at the foot of the bridge. The place feels stale and uninviting. I walk to Broadway with my iced coffee trying to wake, looking for a store that sells A/C's. The elevated train SCREECHES overhead. A group of young toughs on the corner make aggressive movements relating a story, pointing their cigarettes for emphasis. Young girls talk loudly into their phones. Street vendors haggle with customers. Someone screams out of their car window as they round the corner and the coffee moves violently through me. A bus stops in front of me as I try to cross the street blowing a noxious cloud of fumes, enveloping me as I realize that I've left my wallet back in the apartment. I turn around suddenly thinking of Marie as the surroundings dissipate into a silent scream. Something somewhere lost inside of me feels like crying, but nothing comes. The sadness is silent, unseen, yet as present as the air around me. The emotion takes too much physical energy to form as I shield myself from my surroundings. The sun beats down and I feel like I'm losing her, us, as I walk back to the apartment the demons of doubt tearing at me from the inside, feasting on the black pain under the glaring sun as sweat trickles down my forehead.
Love.
Wednesday, 23 June 2010
I Can Smell It
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York
She leaves for the day to the beach. I'm sure that it's not against me, but it feels like it is when she goes. We fought last night. I felt stretched beyond my means, stressed out by unseen enemies and lack of sleep. I was ugly. I was mean.
The day feels like a facsimile of a life I'm supposed to be living. I don't know what's wrong with me. I feel detached from the world, constantly defending myself from an ever encroaching enemy. The apartment is not my home. My clothes are not my own. This isn't the building where I live. I look in the mirror and see an impersonator living in my skin.
It feels silent out, yet the sounds are attacking. There are no clouds but it's gray and rains. The air is too thick to breathe.
I don't say a word to anyone all afternoon. A city full of millions of people and I feel like a stranger.
Before class: The girl from Italy - her light is fading. She just moved here. "New York is not what I think. The blacks are racist where I live here. I think everything is going to be shiny here. But everything ees broken." The young guy next to her who's just come from a year of traveling chimes in, "It's segregated here. It thinks it's not, but it is. The city is schizophrenic. It's fractured living here." The sallow deadpan girl who's lived here all her life tries to defend. I tell her not to kid herself. "This city's a shithole," I say. "There's no gates on the bridges keeping you here," she says, "You can leave anytime."
Something inside me feels stale. Something no longer gives a fuck.
Marie's made food when I come home. I apologize for the way I've been acting and tell her that I love her. She smiles and starts the movie. "You," she says, "You are a handful." I think to myself that the same could be said about her as the fan twists back and forth searching for us in vain from across the room.
She hits me afterward on the couch, joking, one time too many for me to laugh anymore. A sick tension creeps into me from her stare. I tell her if she has a problem to say something and quit fucking with me. She gets up, telling me that I can rot in it. I tell her she's the one rotting, I can smell it.
Love
She leaves for the day to the beach. I'm sure that it's not against me, but it feels like it is when she goes. We fought last night. I felt stretched beyond my means, stressed out by unseen enemies and lack of sleep. I was ugly. I was mean.
The day feels like a facsimile of a life I'm supposed to be living. I don't know what's wrong with me. I feel detached from the world, constantly defending myself from an ever encroaching enemy. The apartment is not my home. My clothes are not my own. This isn't the building where I live. I look in the mirror and see an impersonator living in my skin.
It feels silent out, yet the sounds are attacking. There are no clouds but it's gray and rains. The air is too thick to breathe.
I don't say a word to anyone all afternoon. A city full of millions of people and I feel like a stranger.
Before class: The girl from Italy - her light is fading. She just moved here. "New York is not what I think. The blacks are racist where I live here. I think everything is going to be shiny here. But everything ees broken." The young guy next to her who's just come from a year of traveling chimes in, "It's segregated here. It thinks it's not, but it is. The city is schizophrenic. It's fractured living here." The sallow deadpan girl who's lived here all her life tries to defend. I tell her not to kid herself. "This city's a shithole," I say. "There's no gates on the bridges keeping you here," she says, "You can leave anytime."
Something inside me feels stale. Something no longer gives a fuck.
Marie's made food when I come home. I apologize for the way I've been acting and tell her that I love her. She smiles and starts the movie. "You," she says, "You are a handful." I think to myself that the same could be said about her as the fan twists back and forth searching for us in vain from across the room.
She hits me afterward on the couch, joking, one time too many for me to laugh anymore. A sick tension creeps into me from her stare. I tell her if she has a problem to say something and quit fucking with me. She gets up, telling me that I can rot in it. I tell her she's the one rotting, I can smell it.
Love
Tuesday, 22 June 2010
Money
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York
I wake up dead after six hours of fitful sleep in the sticky heat. I'm faded before the day even breaks. Insecurities lurk in the fatigue of the body and the shadows of thought. Marie says she's working in the building where I'm going for an audition - $500 for my self respect if get the part. "Come to work with me afterward. We need the help today. We'll be done early." I agree. I need the money. I skipped out on work the other night. I've been feeling behind ever since.
I feel torn in too many directions as we leave our apartment into the blinding heat. I'm chasing too many things - work, money, dreams, a sense of ease with this fuckin' city - thinking to myself what do I need? as we walk through the waves of heat rising off the street.
"What's bothering you baby?" she wants to know glancing at me cursively, looking beat.
"Everything."
She looks straight ahead without saying anything, sweat beading on her forehead, her bags looking like they're dragging her into pavement.
Everything.
Everything's a trade off with money. I need money but I need meaning. I need money but I need my dignity. I need money but I need time for my writing. I need money but I need time for school. I need money but I feel drained from working for it. I need money but I need the space to think. I need money to ease the pain in my body that comes from making money. I need money but I need peace. I need something more than what the money gives me.
"Tell me baby," she says as we cross into the shade of a building.
"Nothing," I say, "It's fine. I'm just tired baby."
"Me too. I feel drained already," she says as the sweat gathers on her shirt and we're engulfed by the gaping mouth of the stairs leading into the subway and the city that supposedly has everything, but I've yet to see it.
Love
I wake up dead after six hours of fitful sleep in the sticky heat. I'm faded before the day even breaks. Insecurities lurk in the fatigue of the body and the shadows of thought. Marie says she's working in the building where I'm going for an audition - $500 for my self respect if get the part. "Come to work with me afterward. We need the help today. We'll be done early." I agree. I need the money. I skipped out on work the other night. I've been feeling behind ever since.
I feel torn in too many directions as we leave our apartment into the blinding heat. I'm chasing too many things - work, money, dreams, a sense of ease with this fuckin' city - thinking to myself what do I need? as we walk through the waves of heat rising off the street.
"What's bothering you baby?" she wants to know glancing at me cursively, looking beat.
"Everything."
She looks straight ahead without saying anything, sweat beading on her forehead, her bags looking like they're dragging her into pavement.
Everything.
Everything's a trade off with money. I need money but I need meaning. I need money but I need my dignity. I need money but I need time for my writing. I need money but I need time for school. I need money but I feel drained from working for it. I need money but I need the space to think. I need money to ease the pain in my body that comes from making money. I need money but I need peace. I need something more than what the money gives me.
"Tell me baby," she says as we cross into the shade of a building.
"Nothing," I say, "It's fine. I'm just tired baby."
"Me too. I feel drained already," she says as the sweat gathers on her shirt and we're engulfed by the gaping mouth of the stairs leading into the subway and the city that supposedly has everything, but I've yet to see it.
Love
Friday, 18 June 2010
Wonderwall
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York
I leave work, the ominous feeling building, at 2am engulfed in the darkness of Manhattan and nomads land, where the hotel resides. An unearthly light hangs dead above the skyline and the fetid stench of the black shadowy streets. I duck into the subway, a rat scurrying down a hole in the sidewalk beneath my feet.
I sit reading alone on the platform happy to have the time to myself tucked away beneath the city, the sounds of car horns making their way through the sewer grates. A far off rumble approaches and lights appear in the distance.
The train rattles, jerks then lurches to a halt as my bookmark falls to my feet in the fluorescent steel tube. The doors open to the 14th street Union Square station. The air is dank and stifling as I walk to catch the L train to Brooklyn. The stares of the people are deterring as I make my way to the lower level. I find a seat on the bench under a giant fan next to a passed out older Mexican man. A scraggly meth bent street performer sings and plays guitar to my left at the bottom of the stairs as an older black man at the end of the bench bangs his hand along to the rhythm of the song.
The song he's singing is foreign and familiar at the same time, working its way through my memory, pulling me from the lines in my book, "You should never apologize for being yourself.... People don't change. They try to but they can't. That's speaking from experience." "You're probably right. I'm not going to change." "I hope not." I close the book. I think of my past relationships. I think of Marie. I know this song - By now you should've realized what you got to do / I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now / There are many things I'd like to say to you, but I don't know how / Because maybe, you're gonna be the one that saves me? / And after all, you're my wonderwall -
Love
I leave work, the ominous feeling building, at 2am engulfed in the darkness of Manhattan and nomads land, where the hotel resides. An unearthly light hangs dead above the skyline and the fetid stench of the black shadowy streets. I duck into the subway, a rat scurrying down a hole in the sidewalk beneath my feet.
I sit reading alone on the platform happy to have the time to myself tucked away beneath the city, the sounds of car horns making their way through the sewer grates. A far off rumble approaches and lights appear in the distance.
The train rattles, jerks then lurches to a halt as my bookmark falls to my feet in the fluorescent steel tube. The doors open to the 14th street Union Square station. The air is dank and stifling as I walk to catch the L train to Brooklyn. The stares of the people are deterring as I make my way to the lower level. I find a seat on the bench under a giant fan next to a passed out older Mexican man. A scraggly meth bent street performer sings and plays guitar to my left at the bottom of the stairs as an older black man at the end of the bench bangs his hand along to the rhythm of the song.
The song he's singing is foreign and familiar at the same time, working its way through my memory, pulling me from the lines in my book, "You should never apologize for being yourself.... People don't change. They try to but they can't. That's speaking from experience." "You're probably right. I'm not going to change." "I hope not." I close the book. I think of my past relationships. I think of Marie. I know this song - By now you should've realized what you got to do / I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now / There are many things I'd like to say to you, but I don't know how / Because maybe, you're gonna be the one that saves me? / And after all, you're my wonderwall -
Love
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