faulty belief that your pain
is the purest pain
and your personal agony
alone is god-like and
worthy.
admire yourself in your woe,
Narcissus.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Passion for Art
Passion is, indeed, the problem with creation. If one does not burn, how can one push through?
But, then, who can say "if one does not burn, then she must give up art"? Who can say that one should turn her back on her one constant, her one pleasure, if she has not the passion for true creation?
Is it cheap to desire only to share? Only to inspire? Only to teach? Is the desire to teach simply the outward manifestation of acceptance that you yourself will never be great?
But, then, who can say "if one does not burn, then she must give up art"? Who can say that one should turn her back on her one constant, her one pleasure, if she has not the passion for true creation?
Is it cheap to desire only to share? Only to inspire? Only to teach? Is the desire to teach simply the outward manifestation of acceptance that you yourself will never be great?
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
You're so vain, I bet you think this escape is about you.
It was three-thirty in the morning, and I was too drunk to be making life-altering decisions. But there I was, packing underwear into my thrift-store avocado-green Samsonite bag, trying not to hear my neighbors having sex, and holding the phone with my shoulder while an automated voice gave me my bank balance.
Leaving was a bad choice, but, of course, clichely, staying was not a choice at all.
Standing in the parking lot, waiting for my cab, I finished the last bit of the last champagne I could find in the apartment. Celebration straight out of the bottle. I considered smashing the now-empty container on the stoop, leaving a sticky sharp mess to be found by him when I was already boarding a plane that would carry me to the other side of the country and, hopefully, a him-free life. But this was not that. This was not passion. This was not desperate fleeing from a tortuous existence, from a dangerous lover and a hateful man. This was simply an escape. From the quicksand of conformity. From the inevitable road to suburbia. From the daily deaths that lead to comatose contentment.
The cab was late, and I began to imagine him coming home from his red-eye business-class flight from corporate training in Des Moines. Began to imagine his hurt-puppy expression perched atop his polo-shirt-khaki body. Imagine his rational questions about lease-breaking and division of flatware. Imagine him crying quietly and nodding, and remaining, of course, very calm.
I could not see him. Shouldn't. He could not change my mind, but I would drag him to his unsafe place where I'd cry and rage and he'd see me, maybe, for the first time in years, as I really am: torn stockings, black nails, fraught, disheveled, dreaming. A girl who would never ever move quietly down the street from his parents and start manufacturing his white-collar, preppy offspring so we can start looking at private schools and all have fucking Sunday supper.
This was when I realized: you don't have to berate me to kill my dreams. You don't have to shame me to make me ashamed. And you don't have to be a bad person to be the entirely, completely wrong person. And staying with him after I had realized all of this, would certainly make me the villain in my own story.
Tomorrow night I would wake up in L.A., wrinkled and hung over on my best friend's couch. But for now, it was 4:27 by the clock in the cab, as I leaned in and tossed my bag and purse inside. “Hartsfield,” I had to repeat, because the cabbie hadn't heard me over the sound of the champagne bottle hitting the concrete.
Leaving was a bad choice, but, of course, clichely, staying was not a choice at all.
Standing in the parking lot, waiting for my cab, I finished the last bit of the last champagne I could find in the apartment. Celebration straight out of the bottle. I considered smashing the now-empty container on the stoop, leaving a sticky sharp mess to be found by him when I was already boarding a plane that would carry me to the other side of the country and, hopefully, a him-free life. But this was not that. This was not passion. This was not desperate fleeing from a tortuous existence, from a dangerous lover and a hateful man. This was simply an escape. From the quicksand of conformity. From the inevitable road to suburbia. From the daily deaths that lead to comatose contentment.
The cab was late, and I began to imagine him coming home from his red-eye business-class flight from corporate training in Des Moines. Began to imagine his hurt-puppy expression perched atop his polo-shirt-khaki body. Imagine his rational questions about lease-breaking and division of flatware. Imagine him crying quietly and nodding, and remaining, of course, very calm.
I could not see him. Shouldn't. He could not change my mind, but I would drag him to his unsafe place where I'd cry and rage and he'd see me, maybe, for the first time in years, as I really am: torn stockings, black nails, fraught, disheveled, dreaming. A girl who would never ever move quietly down the street from his parents and start manufacturing his white-collar, preppy offspring so we can start looking at private schools and all have fucking Sunday supper.
This was when I realized: you don't have to berate me to kill my dreams. You don't have to shame me to make me ashamed. And you don't have to be a bad person to be the entirely, completely wrong person. And staying with him after I had realized all of this, would certainly make me the villain in my own story.
Tomorrow night I would wake up in L.A., wrinkled and hung over on my best friend's couch. But for now, it was 4:27 by the clock in the cab, as I leaned in and tossed my bag and purse inside. “Hartsfield,” I had to repeat, because the cabbie hadn't heard me over the sound of the champagne bottle hitting the concrete.
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