when i was a wolf

things are better. they always are. summer is in the air. and speaking of which. i hate the summer. i hate this weather. it's ridiculously inane. i miss walking through the chilly european streets. speaking of walking, as well, i hate that i have to drive to get ANYWHERE. i can't walk anywhere. except around my neighborhood. in london i could say "hey you know i want to go to Marble Arch or Buckingham Palace or Hyde Park or Park Lane or Oxford...i'm going to walk/take the tube." i can't do that here. "hey, i wanna go to my starbucks. i'm going to drive seven minutes. or walk for an hour in the 100 degree heat? nah, i'll drive." it's ridiculous.

and we're all going to the decemberists tonight! hoorah. at last. we've been planning this for like, two/three months already.

and i put a lot of things here that i took out because i don't know it was like "what's the point of putting all those things?" because people know what i feel and think, i know they do.

but yeah. it's sunny out, and as long as i stay indoors i can look outside and think "wow it's a beautiful day" without melting my skin. so i prefer to look on the bright side.

when i burned

and learned.

why bother thinking that something could mean the same to someone else as it does to you? why did i bother missing [xxxxxxxx] so much during europe, thinking about [xxx] nearly every night, wanting to come home just so see [xxx]? why why why? was i lead, blind, by a warm hand down the wrong path? was everything [xxx] said truly empty words, every quiver of [xxx] lips, every shape of [xxx] hands, every pulse of [xxx] body simply the wind of the moment? did it all leave as soon as it came? how is that possible?

i didn't want to come home from europe because i missed my bed or american food or the 100 degree weather (which is about as pleasant as rubbing naked against a cactus). i wanted to come home because i missed [xxx]. of course, i dare not tell [xxx] that. i would also never dare tell [xxx] that i nearly didn't go to europe so that i wouldn't lose spending one day with [xxx]. or that i was frightened because i looked at how much i missed [xxx] in three weeks, and thought about the four years i'd be gone.

i'm not depressed. and, sadly, i'm not surprised, either. i just thought i knew [xxx] better than that. i didn't think [xxx] was the kind of person who would do those kinds of things with someone for whom she had no feelings at all in that manner. and i like the old decrepit fool i am allowed myself to feel something chaotic and calm, destructive and beautiful, for [xxx]. i'm not sad so much as i am disappointed, in everything. not in [xxx] entirely. i don't know, i just thought perhaps something would work nicely before i had to leave for the great beyond. but for some reason i wasn't surprised. i knew that nothing for me is ever reciprocated. it can never be as simple as i hope or imagine it to be. there's a very dark part of me that doesn't even want to take the chance that it could work with someone, once, in the future, and live a recklessly lonely life in an apartment in paris, anonymous and unknown, cloaked in self-cast solitude until my sun sets for good.

and it doesn't matter who it is, whether it's your best friend or someone you just met, being told that [xxx] doesn't want what is going on, what you (or I, in the case) consider something special, something unique, something at all, definable or not, to continue...well, clearly, obviously, it cuts you somewhere much deeper than you expected. but especially when it's someone who is already that deep in your heart, anyway.

vino is right. it's a blessing and a curse. but the blessing is fleeting and light. the curse is heavy and prophetic. yes, her and i would have had to part ways one way or another, be it as friends or more than that. but the curse is a foretelling of the fact that my emotions will always, instead of connecting me with a woman, push me away from her.

i'm certainly not mad enough or hurt enough to not talk to her. i'm just disillusioned. but what hurts is that, while i'm upset and disappointed, i am not shocked. i expected this, somehow, on some level, because i know her inside out; i know the meaning of her every whim and breath, nearly. and i sensed this, of course. i just hoped that all those moments that could have convinced me otherwise were enough to outweigh my doubt.

another mini-poetry/song collection to be filed away under the heading:

"LOVERS FOR A DAY".

is that all it ever is? anyway, it's all i ever have to look back on: the art i created in the wake of her (whoever she is) loveliness and how she made me feel, one way or another. and i'm not heartbroken. i love her and still do (whether it's platonic or not, i don't know). i just wish it could have continued the way it did until i went away to school. perhaps so that i would feel i was truly leaving something amazing behind, forever cast in amber. one single happy memory that will have no shadow cast over it.

but because life is a rising and a setting, a break and an end of day, everything that stands in sight of the sun will be cursed with a shadow.

even us, my dear.

even me.

when i was a little cream soda

i'm very delighted with the new white stripes cd, first of all. and i bought Eternal Sunshine and Science of Sleep. And anna slept over last night and i got to see james. both of those events made me very happy. i missed them very much.

i also find it funny that whenever anything appears un-okay it usually is, anyway. just a thought, now!

let's see. i wrote a song about refusing to evacuate paris before the germans invaded during world war ii. i like that song, actually. it's decemberists-esque, very much. and i have this cabaret type song i like and this song i wrote that is very rufus. and i'm going into the studio in a week or so to "lay down some tracks" as them quite groovy children say.

that's all that's even mildly entertaining. and hopefully tomorrow night i shall have a gathering of a few of us europe-traversing kids at my place of residence and we will all get together and have guided sight seeing of mikey's house then free time in my backyard.

oh, well!

when i returned from afar to the swamp of my mountains

europe was amazing. i'm still struck by the dichotomy of my emotions. basically the whole time i was missing things. not home, per se. i missed anna and anna and james dearly (and was jealous of their canadian expedition together...though at the same time i was wandering the streets of italy and amsterdam). i missed michelle a lot, of course. i also found myself missing katie, my little rising chanteuse, and hoping that she had written some new songs for us to record.

strangely, i also found myself missing - no, not missing, but rather softening on - aleena. not as in 'man i really want to see her.' i think i've just finally filed her away as just another girl, replacing the strong negative feelings i've had for her in the last few months (which began with me finally cutting her entirely out of my life). i just feel bad for her. i hope she's doing alright and that she likes the new rufus wainwright cd, because i do. i should talk to her, at least before going away to college. i miss her mother, too. that's where i feel bad, because her mother did nothing at all; she was like a second mother to me, but i wasn't able to put up with aleena under any circumstances. so that's that, anyway.

but now that i am back home, where i've been dying to return for weeks, i feel bored and out of place. i want to be back in a hotel room in europe, waking up at 7 am and eating breakfast in the hotel with everybody (or by myself, as i rose early), sneezing and being commended with a delightful "fuck you" from erin, and doing guided sight seeing in city centers and having a ridiculous amount of freetime in unfamiliar european cities; i want to be able to walk two minutes to the metro or the underground and hope on a train and go to the Champs Elysees or Oxford Street or anywhere anywhere anywhere that is beautiful and that is europe.

so what has changed? there's a small voice inside my head that knows that missing someone dearly only sets you up for a let down, for you know that those feelings of want are only a one way street, usually. but that's okay, it's preparation. i'm leaving for good in two months. i have to shed it all now and leave my old lost poetic skin behind.

i'm really looking forward to seeing anna and james, of course. and then harley, when she returns for a week for the decemberists concert that i am overly excited about. you know, i missed those three a lot, and i missed them all in different ways. and i saw a bus that said "@na castro" on the side of it and it just made my day (i think that was somewhere in italy at an autogrill...)

so do i bother climbing the infinite mountains of those who remain attached to my shedding skin, or do i dare wade into the deep but small lake of this new, raw flesh? is there ever a forward to turning back? can i walk towards the sun while facing the moon? (or is it the other way around?)

sure, i could go into detail about the europe trip, who did what, who i became fond of, this and that, here and there (seeing the white stripes in concert in europe! being mildly disgusted with amsterdam; rediscovering paris and realizing it's one of the most wonderful cities in the world - definitely a future home; relaxing at the foot of the swiss alps where all is green and cowbells...), but really, really, why? it is all within me, anyway, and would be meaningless to anyone else in the sense that it is meaningful to me.

either way, i am back now, and ready to let the next two months wash over me like the saves trying desperately the cleanse the sand of all its woes and pull me, gently, into the wild ocean.

when i wanted books

i intended to go to barnes and nobel tonight with michelle and james, but that fell through. michelle and i ended up chatting with zita in front of her house for close to an hour, i'd say. an equally enjoyable way to spend one's time.

but i have decided i want to purchase the following books, freeze time, and read them:

- as i lay dying - faulkner
- the sound and the fury - faulkner
- the sun also rises - hemingway
- the road - cormac mccarthy

which of course puts a damper on my current list of to-read books. however, i'm already a third of the way into The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. I'll likely finish it before Europe, so i'll take with me about six or so books, with the honest intention of finishing them all. perhaps i'll bring along "extremely loud and incredibly close" and "unbearable lightness of being" as well, just for old time's sake.

and then we'd both get so blue.

when i was the god of small things

i guess i'm not leaving this behind yet. but i don't think it can inhabit my thoughts anymore the way it used to. too many eyes. my thoughts are better saved for the tunnel of mouth to ear, from my window to yours.

instead i shall sort of my head.

i finished reading 'the god of small things'. i liked it a lot, but she (the author, Arundhati Roy) made the foreshadowing of certain events just a little too obvious, which bugged me the slightest bit. but still, amazing book. and i want to read 'the inheritance of loss', too, but i have to space that with a few books. two indian novels in a row...i like spacing it out. like, for instance, i wouldn't read Kundera and then read Klima. that's just inane.

but the ordered book list for my next few reads is as such:

- the book of laughter and forgetting - kundera
- the madonnas of leningrad - dean
- suite francaise - nemirosky
- love and garbage - klima
- hunger - hamsun
- brief encounters with che guevara (short stories) - fountain
- the heart is a lonely hunter - mccullers
- the inheritance of loss - desai

believe it or not, i stacked those books in order on my bookshelf. i like the calm inside of chaos.

and i love rufus' new album. seriously.

do i disappoint you in just being human?

when i realized that i must begin to leave things behind

i refuse to leave most things behind for now. i shall keep them in my mind and heart.

but i am ready to let this blog go, i do believe. it has become effete. pointless. sterile. barren. as pretty as it is, i need to abandon it. there is so much left to be said that i am must remain silent.

yes.

when i felt silly

i read the post that i put up last night in my jejune little fiery stupor of faux-rage and think 'my lord, why did i write such things?' because of course this morning i look at what i wrote and how i felt and i realize that those emotions were just temporary, and that, thank buddah, i don't really feel that way. i don't truly believe that i sit on a golden throne overlooking a kingdom of shit. i don't really think i'll always fail or always be rejected. in fact, if i look at it, every situation i've ever been in was not out of the breadth of my control. all i have to do is realize that you can't judge things on a simple day-to-day basis. so i was irritated last night, so what. it probably had little to do with why i thought i was irritated.

what i'm really trying to do it more or less discredit my supine self-pitying self of last night (and other moments). these sorts of things do not have wings and they do not suddenly change or vanish from one day to the next. i like that metaphor. they don't have wings. that's a nice image.

sometimes perhaps i should simply let things be (thanks, hamlet) and just take it with a shrug and say "c'est la vie, non?" because truly that is all life is: a series of moments that, thankfully, gratefully, mercifully, pass.

and rufus' new album is really quite good. i've listened to 'going to a town' at least 8 times in the last two days.

when i didn't understand/hated the ocean inside of me

i do not remember the last time i was so mad, driving home tonight at sixty miles per hour on rinaldi listening to "apres moi" as loud as my ears could handle. and i don't remember the last night not being fully aware of why.

i just don't understand. it's like i build myself this golden throne of a mountain only to look over a city full of shit. like, i give myself the illusion, the demure disillusion that for once perhaps something will be nice without me cloaking it in my own self-effacing doubt. do i have to dig myself this concrete castle of shadow and question?

but what does it matter? i know the true fact of the forthcoming future. it's imminent. though half of me is saying 'you are a clown to doubt yourself, simple, monstrous fool,' the other half of me speaks as loud as the sun and it hurts every bone in my body because it's screaming "no, you'll always fail, you'll always be rejected, nothing will ever work out in the end. and you're a damn fool, boy. a damn fool, you know. you think you carry the universe on your back when in truth you're nothing more than the smallest grain of sand, barely touched by the turns and tides of anything heavy or light, anything worthy of laughter or loving or even forgetting. you are merely a paragon of dust, you poor poor animal."

what sort of sick sculptor cast me with such weak clay?

and i don't even know what you are to me, sweet minaret of a character in my sad little story. are we riding high the white foamy crests of time's ocean, or am i drowning and pulling you down with me while you struggle to the surface for a simple breath of sea air?

you see, but now that i am seeing eye to eye with my mirrored self, i realize that all the emotions i felt were not as strong as i thought they were, because with these words, they left me like an exorcism.

some things are static and some things are as liquid as the sea; one is as solid as stone, and the other is constantly moving and churning but in truth always staying the same.

so there. life is comprised of obvious constancy and overall constancy.

i am leaving my static clouds now for the salty air, the moonswept tides, and the chance that perhaps once or twice in my entire life i'll be able to swim through the storms instead drown in them.

--

p.s. there is a likely chance that none of the above words carry any true emotional value. they are merely raindrops onto a cold and unforgiving concrete street.

when i took off

the reality of time is becoming a lot more apparent lately. i'm slowly realizing truly how few days left i have here amongst all these people. in sixteen days from today, i graduate high school. five days later, i leave for europe for an entire month. then i have a meager month and a half left until i leave temporarily for good to portland, oregon (slow gin fizz) to run and fly in the heat of a new place, new people, a new life. more or less.

but then again:

i have sixteen long summer days left with the people i love in high school until we all graduate together. who knows what sort of adventures those sixteen days hold. midnight Pirates? Beach days? then graduation. of course. and then an entire month in the beauty of another continent; the italian aura of pulchritude, snowcapped alps, the allure and lust of london and paris....

and then the infinity of my time in southern california will come to a close but the door will forever remain ajar.

things are either ending or just being put on pause, that's all.

i finished catch 22. and i'm almost late for third period now.

au revoir.

when i wasn't surprised but disappointed all the same

From : Poetry, The New Yoker: TNY_Poetry@advancemags.com
Sent : Thursday, May 10, 2007 11:42 AM
To : Me: siriusjames@hotmail.com



We regret that we are unable to use the enclosed material. Thank you for
giving us the opportunity to consider it.

Sincerely,

The Editors

--

i submitted poetry.

alas.

when i was sad

i feel sad for not having gone to the after AP Lit Test Beach Party today. i'm not sure why i didn't go. but i didn't, and i lament that fact now. i gained nothing out of staying home. anyway.

in other news:

my goal of abstaining from the internet in order to finish reading catch 22 has failed to be reached, though i am making considerable progress and should be done by the weekend. i have roughly 100 pages left.

that makes me happy.

and now i am stuck between the balance of emotions, and i am simply myself again.

when i made a goal

one thing. no. two things. or three.

1) i will not return to the computer/internet until i finish reading catch-22. no exceptions.
2) it's remarkable how silent everyone has been lately (blog-wise)
3) i shall read fifty pages a day. at a minimum.

and 4) i cannot get "rebellion(lies)" out of my head. i just have that line playing on repeat in my head: "everytime you close your eyes (lies, lies!)"

c'est tout.

when i listened to the arcade fire for nearly six hours

and hm, wow.

how heavy things have become,
like sunlight.

and how very warm i am indeed.

(it is a good thing)

oh, and:

i kissed her where it was sore, and she felt better.

when i was illuminated and drank the poison of your rage

there is a poem i wrote tonight that i will not put here, but if you seek it you will find it.

instead:

dated 4/24/07:

"the illumination"

but now that i -
hope-bandaged
and imminently departed so -
sit and think upon
what heights
i thought i had
swam to, i realize,
i see -
i am not clearly as
opaque
as i was once fooled to be,
for the reason of my
earthquakes
leaks out of my skin
in every atomic assembly
of my ripe and
unplucked soul
and becomes all but
someone else -
roots that grown
upside-down into the
shade
and wings that kept us
floating -
we returned, inebriated all
with age and the whips
of time -
for then now
and furthermore our past becomes
everything,
our present becomes
nothing but electronic
dust
that unfolds its way
into an inverse future where
in going forwards,
we are only propelled
backwards
into the dark
of the sun:

And thus, with the sad
song of my heart
patronizing the soul of the
universe,
(dark as water)
i am illuminated:

nothing is bearable.

--

now we can all understand the lightness of everything.