we are in our body mind our body mind is us we are [REDACTED]
PAY ATTENTION
do you feel the sun? it feels like the first and last time every day, why is that? It's nice to be warm. The cicadas are calling. The dogs are so full of joy. The cats are so cute. The sun the sun the sun the sky the trees the birds the green
I want out of this skin I want out of this body I want something else I DESERVE something else anything else please[1]
I should really do some chores today
Lets get down to business. Bills to pay, job to do, this is what you must do to live, and there's no point in dwelling. Plus it feels nice to accomplish something and have a clean home. A clean kitchen with good food goes a long way to soothing the soul. Gives you connection to others. You will feel capable at the end of this
Call your friends, lest you die of isolation. Let them know you love them
the cicadas the cicadas the cicadas. ignore your too quick heart in favor of the katydids. the birdsong (cardinal, mourning dove, towhee, american crow, fish crow, tufted titmouse, carolina wren, gray catbird) takes you closer, the sun feels so good on your shoulders, the smoke in your lungs is a delicacy, the lightening bugs are precious. anchor yourself in this world
Nothing of how you feel has not been overcome, integrated, or subsumed in a consciousness. You are simply as human as everyone else. There is no need to feel pity or shame for the thoughts you have, but you must move through them
Plus, I'm way too pretty, way too smart, to never be seen or recognized. The marks we leave on this world are all we have, let's make them fucking good please. A hard life never replaced the need for common sense or a fucking cigarette for that matter
[REDACTED] texted:
Its good to have friendships. It's nice to have human connection. We should learn more about the world today, perhaps pick up some of the unfinished books. It's been eye opening to learn the history of things, the whys. It's so lovely that people care enough about you to talk to you.
its crazy I can maintain any kind of friendships when mostly i feel like im dripping black ichor from every pore but i think honestly my friends are just really into that maybe. or something.
this coffee smells amazing, do you feel the way these false nails press on your fingers, do you think the pain in your jaw is natural, your shoulders hurt, your knee hurts, do you feel the tears in your chest, where did this bruise come from, itchy, sounds are so loud everything is so FUCKING LOUD I want OUT I WANT OUT I WANT OUT I WANT OUT I WANT OUT IT HURTS
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this coffee smells amazing,
we should go sit outside maybe
I have a headache
[REDACTED] responded:
Something feels different. Is this because they're upset at me? is this because I take up too much space in a relationship with my bullshit? Why don't they open up to me. It's because I am demanding, loud, petty. Even that is a petty thought. I have to get better. I have to DO better.
Anxiety and superiority are just that, two sides of the same coin. Take a breathe, breathe through it. Respond with kindness and compassion, it will come back to you
What's the fucking deal with this weird hippie superego bullshit, who put this white yuppie bitch in charge. Emotions are fucking emotions, they are not things of outside impact unless you put them to action, a whole page of this dragged out drama is insane, get on with it. You're losing the plot here
..............
yeah, lets eat lunch[3]
WALK THE DOGS
What is a dog? A dog as an animal has evolved alongside humans for centuries. A dog's brain and body follow the patterns of domestication, breeding practices, colonial efforts to both erase and bring back, capitalist commodity, civilization, social order. And still, what makes a dog? Context always. If you ask someone across wherever in the world you are what a dog is, they will all answer differently. If you ask what a breed is, you will get even more varied answers. And yet! Dogs persist. Despite never being truly defined. What drives a dog? Connection, work in the oldest sense of the world. Partnership. A dog is continuous embodiment. A dog is global, a dog is a purpose, a dog is ON purpose, a dog is non stop change, behavioral and genetic both. The global patterns of humans are found within the dog - what friction can we find in the dog, what can we learn? The clash of sensory worlds connecting, driven within relational contexts by relational forces, fluidity. Identity as purely as shaped by others.
[REDACTED] Called
CALL [REDACTED]
CALL [REDACTED]
CALL [REDACTED]
SLOW DOWN
PAY ATTENTION
the dogs are here. the cats too. all of us breathe in synch. i love my posters. my bone collection. this blanket is so soft. the weight of my legs on my feet is here, as always. the thunder shook the entire apartment today. the rainfall continues to make the world smell like petrichor. im not ready for summer to leave. i want to be in this soft summer evening forever, watching the fireflies and drinking a beer. this mango tastes so good. my body hurts. I keep crying.[4]
this only matters if its good. if it has some kind of impact. whats the point otherwise
do you think we'll be this lonely forever
I honestly don't know. We're quite good at being lonely. It seems like a bad skill to have
I'm really fucking tired
we're all really tired. I don't think this is helping the way it was supposed to.
this all just seems really basic. except the hyperlinks, I really like those
i know it doesn't actually matter if someone really likes this, but I just want to make something good for once
There's no filling in those cavities that way love.
This wasn't about that anyways
my chest hurts. can we listen to music[5]?
the tears build and build and fall and build and fall. The air outside is steaming. This cigarette is not my last, but it seems like it could be. The world takes me here. I can feel the music in my neck, my shoulders, my aching back. The notes feel like rain. The press of the soles of my feet into the wet earth, the slow crawl of slugs across the sidewalk. A breath besides me, a soft furred snore. The upstairs neighbor's toddler laughs a childs scream laugh. We are here, for what it's ever worth
.................
.................
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we are still here
yes
yes
why
the thing is, pain is a collective experience. a reflection on pain that only includes the internal is by nature a shallow work. and lets be honest, we are many things, but rarely shallow. the nature of being a collective being is that few are. but pain is not the end all be all. that would be grief. and the thing about grief, the sticky part of human nature, is that its an absolute. and it compounds.
the resonance of a beat in your chest. the rattle of your car windows, the wind from the open window lifting your hair scarf. the light, the way its dazzle makes everything look like a movie. the smoke from your cigarette floating upwards. the river, orange, silty, the darting minnows and the flash they make when they catch the sun. the greens. the way you understood what a rolling field truly was when you drove through the mountains the first time. the wild cackle of a friend, gone now. the way cocaine tastes, giggling in the bathroom stall, the building basically one big bass. the way it feels to walk up a mountain, then down.
yeah
basically that
and so like? in order for this to be an entire work of fragments, in order for this to reflect [REDACTED] it has to be more than pain
we have always been more than the pain
yeah.
sometimes it seems like the people around us don't see it that way. it feels like people see us, but not us as we are. and how do I square that you know? I know that we are a mirror, but the throughline of self is still there. always. it makes me angry.
...........................
Theres a lot to be angry about.
it seems to me, to us, that everyone is broken in some way. or addicted to the way becoming a puppeteer feels. we are all we have, and I dont mean us. our job is to learn. our job is to move, to walk, to see. it's not about if we're angry or not. I think its okay to be angry. its about resistance.
the point of a body isn't to reject the body. it will do that on its own. we all rot in the end. but life remains, long, short.
theres not really an answer. this isn't about answers. its looking for some sense of cohesion.
again, its about resistance.
the way you feel when you make someone loved laugh. the way it feels to hold the dogs close. the way a really good mango tastes. the way it feels to make bread. the way it feels to sink your feet into the ground and push against something heavy until it moves. the way you love to argue, how it makes your body feel to tell someone exactly how you feel about that, to eat, to burn rubber, to refuse, to scoff, to reach in and throw it right back.
We have always been incorrigible, and quite proud of that. its the reason we're alive, despite it all.
Resistance is about more than the self though.
Its like grief. An absolute. And like grief, its not easy to stare in the face of. You have to build it, from the edges. And that makes it collective. The edges, where the friction builds, the underside of things, those are places where you find living.
The center of a body does not make a body alone.
The question of identity is internal, self. But identity is ever forming, relational. How do you define yourself? What boxes do you reach for as shorthand scripts to obfuscate? To explain? What lines of self and others do you draw? What touches have rippled out to others, do you know what touches rippled to you? Who hurt you? Who have you hurt? What makes hurt happen? Do you have a self? Can you? What makes you? What contexts drive you? What do you drive towards? Why? Why do you want to be an individual? Who told you anyone was an individual? What violence of self do you ask others to inflect in the name of identity?[6]