we only said goodbye with words

31 March 2007

when i tried to be a published author

i submitted six poems via email to the new yorker. i'm planning to submit a short story to mcsweeney's, dave eggers' magazine, and a short story to the paris review.

i'd really like to be published.

like js foer or eggers. those two are pretty genius writers.

anyway. if you want you can read the story here: http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2272815/1/. it's called "what it really feels like to have a cold wind biting your face and nobody to love" and i wrote it about this girl named ****** and it really freed me from her, in a sense. or allowed to see a future in which i wouldn't be manacled by her manicism. is that a word?

when i played connect the meloys

so this is pretty neat, and rather pointless, but still interesting.

i'm browsing the reed website and there's a page of writers visiting the campus, and under Spring 2007 there's a lady named Maile Meloy from Helena, Montana, visiting. Well, it just so happens that she is Colin Meloy's (from the Decemberists) sister! How neat is that? I thought it was pretty cool.

30 March 2007

when i saw portland and cried

i got into reed, in portland.

i am happy. very very happy.

29 March 2007

when i was disappointed part II

so i didn't get into berkeley or ucla, either. i'm still not sure how disappointed i am. i'm not one to take such losses too hard; i'm generally accepting of the way things work out. sure, going to berkeley would have been an amazing experience, but i'm sure i'll find an equally amazing one elsewhere.

i'm still waiting on reed and amherst.

i hope i get into reed. i'll definitely be bummed if i don't. i have a feeling that's where i'll end up, though. i'm a reedie at heart, i think.

part III: i didn't get into brown either.

when i was disappointed but not altogether surprised

so i'm 5/7, anyway. i didn't get into harvard or columbia, which doesn't completely surprise me.

i'm still waiting on brown and berkeley for today. and reed and amherst and stanford in the coming few days.

updates to follow.

28 March 2007

when i opened

i figure that this vesitbule of fabricated emotion might as well be used for some good. and what other type of good is there to bring to this world but my own thoughts?

here are things i am thinking about. with certian names ommitted for my own sake.

1. ms. jamba
2. the decemberists
3. ms. *****
4. ms. saturday night
5. saturday night
6. ms. castro
7. ms. ****
8. midsummer night's dream
9. going to bed
10. love.

i feel like focusing on #s 1, 2, 4/5, and 8. for now. 10 is far too difficult to try and grapple with. but it's redundant, because it pertains at least to #s 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.

1. ms. jamba. in the vain hope she's not reading this. anyway, prom looms happily, ever nearer, and i'm both somewhat surprised and happy i'm going with her, because she ridiculously cute and someone with which time seems to hold less meaning. whenever we hang out, there is no silence in which nothing is put, for we can always manage to stumble upon something to talk about. noted witticisms we have exchanged:
jamba: you need to come in and get a free drink from me. do you want one right now?
me: no thanks.
her: you sure? i have to pay you back for all the starbucks you get me.
me: go to prom with me. that's paying me back just enough.

and

jamba (reading an advert): will a caramel macchiato really "indulge my sense"?
me: i don't know, marissa, do your senses need to be indulged?
her: do yours?
me: that's a bit of a personal question, don't you think?

anyhow, i'm trying to sort out how i feel about her, because the time to act on any feelings i may have for her is slowly running out (as noted by ms. castro), but then there's the compliaction of #s 3-5, of course. which leads me to #5, which encompasses #4.

#5. saturday night. the low down. cast party after closing night of midsummer night's dream. we are all at bianca's house, and a girl i thought i'd never really see again was there with her dear darling friend, ms. tina. i saw her both before and after the play, and instantly knew (if i may confess my own thoughts) that something was bound to happen at the end of the night. and when i found out she was to be at the cast party, well, i knew it would happen. it must have been two years since we had seen (and thence kissed) each other, and it was interesting, because it felt like very little time had elapsed - i am now older and the more clever to know not to allow myself any significant feelings for her, but aside from that, it was easily two years ago, and before long (but not until after i drove ms. jamba home), her and i were not all too subtley giving each other "that sin again" (if i may so daringly quote R&J)...in layman's terms, making out. of course it was fun, and her and i have always been chemical (chemistry between us), despite the fact we've only seen each other a whopping three times now. but sentiments of meeting up again and 'i missed you' were exchanged and the night was over, not without some hot making out on top of tina's brother, against a wall, on the dancefloor, and barefoot outside. i don't know what is conflicting about it. i'm just thinking about it. i want to call her and tell her thank you and that i had a great time and that we shouldn't wait another two years, but most of all
[me: i don't really write poetry anymore.
her: why not?
me: i have no conflict. no need to write.]
for giving me some sort of reason to poetically release whatever's going on inside of me (i've written way more since saturday night) and while my poems don't necesarily laud her loving praise, i'm just glad the gates have opened up and i am writing again. i wouldn't mind seeing her again, real soon. perhaps that's part of the conflict. i have feelings for ms jamba. and want to have real feelings for her. but i still want to see these other girls (including #3, perhaps #7, and the unmentioned #11, friend of michelle's and a pretty little blonde girl). anyway.

#2. the decemberists are amazing.

#3 (making a surprise appearance). one of the more perfect girls i've ever had the pleasure of coming across. much more could be said on her subject, but i'll hold back for now. perhaps until a rainy day.

#8. i never thought i'd be soppy over something like being in a high school play. but i really really miss it. i miss rehearsals and sitting with ms. jamba listening to my ipod. i miss bitch slapping andy and being his mastah. i miss speaking in spanish to catherine. i miss being on stage with tina. i miss love tokens and here comes thisbe and may now and take thy flight moon. i miss kurihi and all the mechanicals. i miss the looming weekend of the play and worrying that it won't come together at all. i miss it all. it's depressing. it was one of the most amazing few months of my life. recently, anyway. and on a certain level, i mean. i am sad for that.

for now that is all. tomorrow i will hear from brown, columbia, berkeley, ucla, and harvard. lord.

27 March 2007

when i heard from a fifth one

i got into union college in new york.

five for five so far.

columbia/berkeley on thursday.
stanford on friday.

26 March 2007

when i did something i don't regret and fell asleep writing a poem

(and posted two blogs in one day)

in blood, is it
so vain to say
through holy roses
the vile temptress
thy name is
things past.

that to which
wherewithall,
i do so entreat your
springly beauty
to pardon me-

for while I know just
well
like aristotle school children
the everything of nothing,
i reside in the middle,
lustfully composing
intermingled chaotic
silence.

-and adamesque, i take
the second bite
of bittersweet memories
and symphonize life and death's
eternal romanticism
in my head.

when i figure it out and then lost it again and then realized it doesn't matter anyway (or, when anna and i philosophized)

Slight Bread: what will happen, anna?
to Burn Brightly: in life or right now? right now, we will breathe and continue on, every cell living and dying happily. in life, we will we breathe and die, every moment fleeting and passing on, sadly, but happily as well.
Slight Bread: that's the beauty of it all
Slight Bread: is that in the end it doesn't matter.
Slight Bread: what once was will never breathe again and all you did was for naught.
Slight Bread: except momentary pleasure
Slight Bread: cuz if you think about it, even life happiness is a momentary pleasure, for life is but a moment in time
to Burn Brightly: quite well said.
Slight Bread: thanks.

you're pretty.

--

when anna and i and anna and i philosophized further:

to Burn Brightly: i dunno. i'm all about... momentary pleasure. hopefully it all feeds into something bigger.
Slight Bread: it won't. but the hope keeps us going, anyway.
to Burn Brightly: yeah.
to Burn Brightly: i guess i wouldn't do a lot of things if i didn't hope that
Slight Bread: dirtylibertine.blogspot.com
Slight Bread: true.
Slight Bread: despite what we say or believe, an uncontrollable part of us believes it's all for something bigger.
Slight Bread: which is what keeps us breathing.
to Burn Brightly: i've written about this.
Slight Bread: interesting
to Burn Brightly: what makes me an existentialist but a romantic as well.
Slight Bread: that's true
to Burn Brightly: i know there is no purpose to things... but that i hope that there was.
Slight Bread: there's nthing wrong with that
Slight Bread: cuz on one hand, you might as well seek self fulfillment while you can
to Burn Brightly: yeah. but that never works out.
to Burn Brightly: temporary pleasure leads to longing of a permanent ecstasy
Slight Bread: which doesn't exist
to Burn Brightly: no. though part of me knows its arrogant to say that, because i still haven't experienced a lot of things
Slight Bread: but the realization that perm. x doesn't exist doesn't come from living a life of pleasure seeking only to find you are left unfulfilled at death
Slight Bread: it's about accepting the inevitability of an untimely death.
Slight Bread: all death is untimely, for we all die without ever fulling satisfying ourselves.
to Burn Brightly: yes. we always die too soon, or too late.
to Burn Brightly: the latter just as bitter as the former.
Slight Bread: quite so.
to Burn Brightly: i don't know, i'm compelled to believe that we're constantly trying to find a balance between the two. living for the ideal, but delving into the real.
Slight Bread: wow
Slight Bread: that's exactly what i was just telling harley
Slight Bread: Slight Bread: life is a balance between the two, i think.
Slight Bread: to know when you let be and when to pursue things
PePPeRKiTTy29: hmm
PePPeRKiTTy29: a mix of apathy and drive (for a lack of a better word)
to Burn Brightly: yes.
to Burn Brightly: indulging in one leaves you aching for the other.
Slight Bread: but when you're in llove it all seems to be for a reason. life seems to exist on purpose
Slight Bread: or if you're happy. or anything
Slight Bread: but otherwise...
Slight Bread: everything seems to be a wicked accident of the universe

--

PePPeRKiTTy29: your view seems very hedonist
PePPeRKiTTy29: i like "life is but a moment in time"
Slight Bread: thanks
Slight Bread: it's quite a way to look at things
PePPeRKiTTy29: thats what i use as my rationalization these days quite often
PePPeRKiTTy29: that i should enjoy things now
Slight Bread: exactly
Slight Bread: i mean there's two opposite ways
Slight Bread: you can say it's all for naught so why bother
Slight Bread: or you can say that you might as well seek self fulfillment while you can
PePPeRKiTTy29: exactly
Slight Bread: life is a balance between the two, i think.
Slight Bread: to know when you let be and when to pursue things
PePPeRKiTTy29: hmm
PePPeRKiTTy29: a mix of apathy and drive (for a lack of a better word)
Slight Bread: exactly.
Slight Bread: life is too complicated to ever settle upon one way of viewing things, i think.
Slight Bread: because think about it:
Slight Bread: when you're in love, everything feels purposeful, reasonable, as if everything has meaning
Slight Bread: or in any state of happiness
Slight Bread: but out of such...there seems to be no point.
PePPeRKiTTy29: hmm
PePPeRKiTTy29: out of happiness you mean?
PePPeRKiTTy29: or out of love?
Slight Bread: either
PePPeRKiTTy29: i think i would agree
PePPeRKiTTy29: it would be foolish to settle on one way
Slight Bread: perhaps it is because love creates a universe on its own
Slight Bread: quite so, quite so.
Slight Bread: and in that universe the rules are made by those who live in it. as opposed to our universe
PePPeRKiTTy29: haha i like that.

--

24 March 2007

when i went back in time

a silent but ever-grateful nod to felicity's mistress and the dwindling solipsist [i'm sure you two know who you are]; i seem to have unconciously begun immitating their blog titles (all beginning "when" or "where" or something to that effect), but i feel like time every once in a while must overlap itself, and here it goes:

all these people are just people, absorbing the air of recreational inebriation, corporate flagellation, cognitive dereliction - we are all slowly wasting away in the wake of our artificially consumed splendor.
we grunt and we struggle and clap our hands together for food and a place on the ladder - a foothold, something that guarantees we won't fall and crash and give our bodies to the earth, to the night, to the clear ocean.

we crawl through vents and seep through living rooms, permeating our foul knack for hate and destruction. throughout this room, this house, this voice, we make drug deals on cell phones while injecting our veins with languages of false hope and tears of indifferent apathy, the love of hating, the joy of murder - we kill ourselves, slowly, with our toxic emissions.

i'll never understand the chemistry of money, the freedom in torture, the length in eternity, the brevity in fleeting thoughts - nothing is everything and thus all is the same, close or far, tangible or idealistic - we are all drowning in this chasm of nonexistence.

i am tired of living and not dying - can there be a stop to this progressive participle, this movement - there is no constant. i am tired of expecting less from more when i'm expecting the sky but i'm on the floor, when i count to three because i can't count to four, when i want to leave but can't find a door; i don't want to sell myself but i still feel like a whore -

can anything intervene?

and everyone i meet i either think of killing them or fucking them - the questions always result in life or death - can you really kill someone without allowing them to live? can you fuck someone without killing them a little? how do you define yourself? a murderer or a lover? is there a difference?

(we do not speak our own words - we just echo the universe with our own voice - but how can i echo what i have never heard, when i have no sound, no voice, no desire to be heard? i put some thoughts on paper and burn them with my eyes, sealing them into my mausoleum of nomadic loneliness - some, dark and disturbing, sheepish and childish, i keep in my mind and do not even say to myself in the mirror - words exist but are meaningless everywhere.)

so we wander around aimlessly, empty, curious as to where we are going, where we have been, what is, what isn't - we are unconsciously erroneous in this imbecile system - we are grains of sand on the shores of the smallest ocean -

our conscious mind fills our internal lapses with illusions and shadows of the beautiful world and our monetary lives, dictated by numbers and ladders, a random accumulation of unstable radioactive LCD images, plasma to our mind, shit to the earth - meaningless, we allow ourselves to be protean beings and meagerly absorb everything we are spoon-fed or brainwashed with.

we do not alter our mind with chemicals, we alter chemicals with our mind, until we are left with the flagrant perception of life.

and what is funny is that all this takes us nowhere.

(written sometime in may of 2006)

another note (i am fond of notes):
i chose this over another rant i had written.

where conflict doesn't arise and i'm lost for words

is it so terrible that my illustrious and prolific creativity feeds solely off of conflict? i can't write unless i'm in the throws of a relationship that, if all is hypothetically going well, is unlike anything i've been in before; or, if my life is completely devoid of conflict.

when things are simple and laid out quite clearly, nothing prompts me to question, and thus there is no need building up inside of me that screams in ink. even now i'm having trouble writing about how i'm having trouble writing. irony? i don't know. but, i continue.

tonight was the first of two performances of midsummer night's dream, and it went amazingly.

everything is just ridiculous, when you think about it. life is so weighed down with nothing [i know what kundera meant in regards to the unbearable lightness of being] that it's a surprise by now we haven't all sprouted wings and flown straight into the sun.

i don't know where that came from. generally i don't know where anything i say or do comes from. i'll come up with some idea or poem and look back on it and (from time to time) say "my what genius!", not necesarily in an arrogant or self-satisfying way, but more so in simple awe that i and i alone produced something, anything, even remarkably noteworthy. for instance, this crazy idea/way i came up with to ask ms. jamba to prom (i sincerely hope she's not reading this. it would really spoil everything. and if she is). i won't go into detail. but i'm just surprised i came up with it. i didn't think i'd come up with anything even resembling cute or clever, and that i'd have to go with the average and embarassing straight up face to face question.

i'm falling asleep writing this.

on a note.
i've always thought having a journal or whatnot is a bit contrived, and reading it is terribly counterproductive. read something published.

21 March 2007

if only for a moment

so i'm just sitting there, you know, all bedecked with solipsism and nihilism and what have you, gently allowing the germinating of idea after idea, each seed of something new planting itself inside my fertile brain, when the issue arises that i do not know what to ask anymore. the time has come and gone, i am waiting for the future to pass. that is all. i have no more dangling question marks left flaunting their insolence in my face like baby with a rattle. i'm lost for words, rhyme, reason, metaphor...in terms of actually saying anything reasonably noteworth, i feel like an abandoned well: deep and dark but empty.

fill me with apples, i am lovesick

(like columns of smoke, your love is as strong as death)

20 March 2007

thought

i wish my blog were as aesthetically pleasing as james's or anna's. instead mine is rather bland. i feel as if a more pulchritudinous blog would allow for more poetic thoughts to pull forth from my tongue and between my eyes.

alas.

11 March 2007

"a cartographer's curse"

projection
of subtle fury -
how you come upon me
again,
lion in the afternoon -
am i nothing but
a sole weak mind?
or here, waiting for
anything but
nightfall?

but look you mighty shepherd
how doth the stars
climb the old jacobean ladder
to their flammable cradle
in the ink black sky.

with form and shape, i am not
but only where i am,
and how like a
cartographer's curse
am i, laden with the
burdens
of being and knowing
and thinking while allowing
no logic nor
the dove's heart
to spread the wings of my mouth
and cry through
my lips,
ignorant and slave-blind.

listen, pale weeping gods
of the wandering
(elusive)
dawn -

do you want
lips to do
what hands never dare?

what is this truth:

we.

existence is futile -
(hot ice under a summer sun)
and does not exist.

and we
are all one
and all alone.

so says i.

07 March 2007

mojo pin

i have been listening to jeff buckley all day and have come to the conclusion that there are few other people that exist or have existed that come even close to measuring up to his ridiculous talent.

there's this strange mood that settles upon me from time to time, and while it was happening today i had it described in my head perfectly, but for some reason i can't recall it. it had something to do with feeling sad, but moreso bereft than down. just sort of melancholic and reflective.

it may come back to that eternal search for sunshine that always leaves you dark and standing in the rain, knowing that just beyond those hills and above that cloud lies beautiful sunlight.

06 March 2007

salem and palomino

what is existence? the futility of it is highly questionable and yet entirely believable: we are conceived from an entirely selfish act, we are incubated, we are born, we live, and we die. the cycle never repeats. it happens once and then just as the dust seems to settle, it all disappears.

we are all simple oceans of words in which we drown each other in.

that's all i have for now.