September Twenty First, 2011

Dear Troy,

I know these words
will never reach you,
that my
empathy cannot cross
space, time,
prison walls.

In less than a day they will
extinguish
the flame that was your life
with the word
"justice"
dripping from the syringe.

I thought we had agreed
to stop lynching people.

they say we live in a
"post-racial" society,
but you and I both know that it's all
bullshit.

today my white guilt is
suffocating.
i call and call and call
the Chatham County DA
and sign countless online petitions
and wail and sing and cry
for your clemency
hoping my little white girl voice can talk a little
sense
to their blood-thirsty ears
but all that will come from my
"activism"
are unanswered phone messages and
email spam and
noise.

they want blood, Troy,
but you know that.
their rage places you
square
in the line of fire.

"collateral damage"
they call it.

I wonder when we,
the colonizers,
the oppressors,
the privileged
will have to answer for
our crimes.

when will the nightmare end?

I'm sorry, Troy,
deeply sorry, Troy,

for everything.

collateral damage

i walk cautiously, tentatively,
pepper spray in hand
ready
to combat violence with violence.
i have been conditioned as such-- i
am a product of conflict, though
i've never experienced
napalm,
armed militias,
revolution.

i wonder
if my imagined attackers
could question themselves:
if the burn of chemical weaponry would cause them
to lose their sense of
entitlement
or if they would just hit the next bitch they saw
harder,
rape more brutally

or if they would pick up a gun
and travel farther
to foreign lands
to live, kill, and maybe die
"for me."

all i can do is
keep my doors locked;
check the peephole at every knock,
suspect everyone and
weather the long night
curled up like cats
with the people i trust today.

Things that make me nervous

horses.
revolving doors (HELL SPINNERS).
dreadlocks on white people (95% of the time).
unnatural fibers.
serial killers.
pro lifers.
big dogs (horse-sized).
staplers.
going clubbing.
too many GIF's on a page.
math.
really big spiders.
sea monsters.
those grates in sidewalks over empty holes (well, there's often generators and stuff in them, but there's a significant drop).


as i think of things, i'll update this.

conversations with a prisoner

Silence tells me
            “I’ve been buried alive for six years now”
behind bars, hundreds of miles away
he writes
to purge
and I open my arms, ready
for whatever words rush into them.

I want to tell him that I’m buried too--
I have covered by true essences in lies
and distractions; have made mazes
out of cornfields.

It is not the same, of course.
He, locked behind bars, “a danger to society”
ie: a young black male.
me, a young white girl, locked
in self-imposed silence,
self-induced brain damage.

I want to speak my secrets.
They claw at my throat like cats at a door.
I write them, erase them, scribble over words,
edit words, edit time,
edit memory.

This is why I cannot journal in the traditional sense.

We’re both just groping in the dark, Silence and I.
Looking for comfort, freedom
solace
to give wings to silent stories
too terrible to be told.

.

fem theory of the day

"Witches did dance in the moors and they hid there too.  The wilderness was for the most destitute women the only place of survival that society allowed them.  The witch, the queen of the forest, is like the domesticated wife who is queen of the home.  Queen of one domain because excluded from all others.  Mystery, night, forest, it all resembles the clandestineness of pariahs and heretics.  The underground where one may indeed fight is nonetheless equivalent to freedom."

Marks and de Courtivron, 1986: 220

gahhbage

last month i got my monroe, and have also put some color in my life.  i need a new tattoo, that is certain.  i just need to design it first.  oh, and save myself some money.  ha!

\

also, i found out what happens to cupcakes if you forget the eggs.

they're really crumbly and you have to eat them with a spoon.

i've been painting and working out lately as well.  more of that some other time.  

buffalo

i love this city.
i don't care that it's "dying" and depressed.
some people complain about western new york weather because it changes more frequently than some people change their underwear.  it will be beautiful and sunny one day, freezing, sleeting and horrible the next.  that's what i like about it.  the complainers, i think they just can't handle change.

my neighborhood isn't all that great.  it's mostly college students and poor people.  sometimes in my house i think of all the people that have come and gone from here. since this house was built, it's been like a year-long rest stop.  people have been cooking and fucking and shitting and living in these little rooms paying too much for rent for decades now.  in a few months i'll move out and some new college kids will get my slumlord and continue the semi-annual cycle of moving.  no one stays in the heights for long.

i'd like to move downtown.  maybe allentown.  it's still nice and crappy and homey feeling, but without the frats and drunk freshmen.  still drunks though.  one would be hard pressed to find a sober neighborhood in the city limits.

there's a great music scene.  lots of metal and punk bands come through.  jam bands too, although that's really not my scene.  and food.  when people that move away talk about buffalo, they talk about the food and for good reason.

so, that's my little tourist ad.  come live in buffalo.  people are pretty nice.

an actor dies

could we start again please?

today was John's funeral, and reality happened.  in actuality, reality happened friday with the accident, but until today it all felt suspended.  i cannot hope to wake up any longer.

it is complete now, two ends of time are neatly tied.

i didn't think i'd feel like this.  he had fallen into one of the periphery circles of my life--there, but not as close as he once was.  a few days ago, i would not have recalled much of his influence in my life.  As i sat among the mourners, though, memories unhinged themselves from the dark recesses of my brain and danced into the spotlight.

in a way, i am glad he was saved in the last few years of his life.  i saw the comfort it brought him through his trials.  i, however, seem to be missing the chromosome that allows one to believe in higher powers and heavens.  i have grown comfortable in not believing, and while this leaves me with more questions than answers, i realize i cannot understand the ways the universe works.

in my non-traditional mish-mash of spirituality, i have been given some comfort from the Book of Runes.  I meditate on Hagalaz in times like this The more severe the disruption in your life, the more significant and timely the requirements for your growth.  The universe and your own soul are demanding that you do, indeed, grow.  The Runes teach that death is but a successful conclusion to a journey; that the lessons required of you are learned.  i guess i wish i understood those lessons better.

my best memories of John were of him on the stage.  i had the privilege of acting with him on numerous occasions, during which i became a far better actor.  he brought out characters i didn't know i could play, which in turn, taught me more about the dark recesses of myself.  any actor worth his salt knows that all the parts lie within you, and you are the one to draw them out.  in my mind, his finest hour was in The Fantastiks, sitting on a crate downstage singing Try to remember the kind of September, when life was slow and oh, so mellow


i saw ghosts in that theatre, and one day, i would like to join them in their mischief.  if there is any afterlife, i hope mine is there whispering through the walls and shutting off lights.  mostly, though, i hope in John's final hours his memories drew him back there as well, to under the brights, taking a bow on closing night to a standing ovation.

cupcake zen

lately, I have found a new love of cooking.  I moved into my first big-girl apartment in May, and have been experimenting in the kitchen ever since.  since I turned 21 in December, I realized that I really, really like to make cupcakes.

i'm not particularly good at baking, and I don't really follow a recipe.  I just make cake batter from a box, frosting from a can, and go from there.  I like picking out their little skirts that I bake them in and finding cute color combinations.  today it was red velvet cake and cream cheese frosting.

maybe one day, I will make them from scratch.  for now, I will just make cupcakes bi-weekly or so and invite my friends over to eat them.

I find myself baking when I am conflicted or stressed out.  Classes start back up tomorrow, which is exciting, but always daunting.  part of me will always worry that "the other kids won't like me," even though I am a college junior and that is a silly thought.  This batch, though, are grief cupcakes.  They are for John, a close family friend that passed away suddenly this week.  Perhaps I will bring some to his daughters.

the process of mixing, scooping, baking, frosting is cathartic in some strange way.

my cupcakes are not picture perfect, but they are tasty.