August 7, 2011

  • Sylvia Plath, Lady Lazarus

    Except I feel the way my tattoo expresses death; something beautiful metamorphasizing from another ending. When can I kill off the destructive girl that lives inside of me? [I rocked shut as a sea shell] Ghostly memories of years past slip into the forefront of my brain. Look at the way that little cat curls up into such a tight ball, covering her eyes with one perfectly white paw. Defining moments where I saw the fork in the road for what it was and dreamed of all each path could offer me- sometimes I feel as if the cards have been stacked from the start. There was never a right direction or a reward at the end. It would have turned out the way it turned out regardless of my choices- maybe not, maybe I feel that way as a sort of consolation prize to this monumental heart ache.

    I've been searching for love for years, clinging to scraps thrown down at me like a dog pacing by the dinner table, watching everyone else around me eating until they are completely full but with pity they offer me a taste. I can recall certain events but never exactly how they felt. One of the last nights in his bed, with his blue ocean water eyes whispering I'm too broken to fix me, how could I ever fix you? The way it felt when our fingers intertwined. Further back I can't really remember all that much about the first time, my first love- only how dark the apartment was, how the windows faced the street, the way roaches crawled out of the cracks fearlessly. I remember clutching the sheets for my innocence, looking at the tiny blood stains that were the remains of my virginity as he left me there. I could hear the shower running faintly as the thunder overwhelmed the building. Just like when the train passed by, the slow shake shake shake, the big fat rain drops pelting the window and the frail roof. 

     

    I've come so far, so many men, so many places but I still feel like the lost teenager wandering around Manhattan sometimes, trying to find myself. I can't find what I have been searching for within myself regardless of my physical location. Her voice soothes me [there is a charge for the eying of my scars] The past seems like a collage of blurred people and battle scars, empty rooms filled with people. Everyone wears a mask but when I put mine on, I become that person. Has my life here become a prison sentence? Doing time until I graduate, feeling less than inspired, or maybe being alone will make things bloom within my own garden because I will remember to water the plants. My mind won't be consumed with pleasing others but instead pleasing myself.

    I am reminded of the apartment in Las Vegas, the last one I lived in with my mother there, the dark carpet, staring out my bedroom window. The painting of the tree. Trying to remember who I was back home, the empty blank feeling of starting over. Feeling the time slipping through my fingers. The infinite struggle for normalcy [nothing's real and nothing lasts] The underestimation of my own capabilities as an artist settles in, like kicking sand right near the shore, stirring up a cloud that settles slowly back down to where it came from but now in a new and different order. 

    Who shaped this person that I've become? Did I let my year alone with him swimming through my head, whispering in my ear, shouting through the deafening silence- did I let him change the order or did I choose to hide behind the broken glass. How do I try to classify these feelings now? Searching for approval, affection from people who don't care or matter. Through quiet songs that remind me of what this life used to feel like? Sitting alone at a tiny man made pond under a tree, wishing for impossible things. What makes the tree different from the couch I sit at now?