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Noise

unfortunately, I am around simple people. When I thought one would surprise me just turned out to be another attempt to steal me from my body. 

I am not an escort. I am not just zoning out. Alcohol bleeds into my membrane and releases my emotions. I am free. No longer thinking in words or in transferred state to reach another; Like Im stretching my self thin to make it breathable for others.

I have found what I have lost. A world I do not understand, I am no longer afraid, I embrace it. She is home to me. The sharp notes, the throbbing strings, echoing bells, blue dimples. It all connects to make a chaotic masterpiece.

This is what he was trying to tell me. The real He. Lying alone listening to pure sadness and anger and disgust that we are birthed into, and how passionate we must conceal ourselves. 

All is well, that is, if you truly accept her. Looking at him, I could sense sadness, but also an animal that could not see beyond his instinctual hunger. How much he desperately pleaded for just a little sweetness; the kind only found in women. One that can make a man crumble and make him spend $200 on a girl she just met. A girl who would not let him into her world. 

In the years that I have regretted and been shameful of my visuals, I had not realized that others have not formed that similar concept of soothing. That they are forever stuck in this unbearable reality, in which nothing ever happens, yet they try so hard to keep everything together.

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Till the Burn in my Throat Echoes

Why are you so quiet?

Muted hands vocalize words through fingers

Signs that I am not allowed to speak

A Red hot face, scrunched up nose

Till your mind slips into a fading void.

Don’t hold your breath for too long 

Or they will never hear you.

I open my mouth to a shocking screech so loud

It pierces into their ear canal 

Like a great serpent 

Latching onto their first taste of morning rabbit.

A vomit filled with soul bits and masqueraded 

Tongue, so to speak, a language 

Not familiar with man but perhaps 

A rabid animal.

Why are you so quiet?

I can feel the needle 

Peck against my lips 

My teeth tear against the thread 

And I chomp and chomp 

until my lips turn from 

Black to Red 

and I feel my belly

Rise to my chest once more. 

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Living my Dreams Feels so Cold

For a long time, I have yearned for a sense of purpose. Nothing around me satisfies me, there is always something that is missing. Sometimes, that “something” is a gleeful resonance of the future and its possibilities. Other times, it is the walls that support the constant disintegration of my metal state. My anxieties fluctuate between hopelessness and optimism, but the continuous feeling is always that I am NOT satisfied. It’s so exhausting, endlessly craving. Again, I am grateful that my drive has taken me to greater lengths that I only thought were possible in dreams. Talking to him more has really shone a light on how privileged I am. I always knew it of course I am not completely oblivious, but sometimes it feels like we are speaking two different languages. I am mostly surrounded by college-educated people, those who have gotten into the top 25% of schools and have a very developed but slightly pretentious undertone of speaking and sense of humor. It really has taken me a back the first couple of times we have met that even though there are some similarities, there is equally a number of differences that is slightly off-putting, yet highly intriguing.

The main thing is this sort of child-like embodiment in the present. I live in this almost obsessive Introspection, in which I am always over analyzing every aspect of every inch of life. He does not do that. No that isn’t true. He does, but in a very limited scale. Like I will be worrying about how I never finish sewing those pants in Erin’s shop senior year and now I will have no fashion experience and so I am going to have to step A, B, C, and D for me to be able to get into fashion grad in Spain in 2027, and he is worrying over what he ate for lunch had a little bit too much tomato.

Of course, I am exaggerating, but what I am realizing now more than ever is living day by day rather than 3 years behind and ahead is such a simple, yet peaceful mindset. It is a little terrifying that being with Him and talking to Laissa and taking Lexapro, I have felt a change within me. I am familiar with thinking so far ahead that actually enjoying the present is quite alarming for me. The future no longer concerns me as much and all of these grand aspirations that I have had of being a youtuber and doing all of this photography and being a master musician seems a little more trivial to me.

I am really starting to not feel real. Living is definitely more peaceful, but I am way more indifferent of everything, and I am not sure how beneficial that is. I have lost myself this past couple of weeks, my responsibilities have gone through the window and all I can think of is what I want to do right now. One of my biggest fears in life is losing my drive and succumbing to the life of the mundane. What my sister has said to me really was uplifting; sometimes I am guilty of how I underestimate how wise she is (I mean she IS my sister). I am picking apart this man, degrading all of his flaws and underestimating him without truly getting to know who he is and it isn’t fair. Falling in love isn’t about finding your perfect match that checks all of your boxes “on paper”. It is about finding a person that appreciates you as you are and learning to cherish the parts of them that you admire and the parts of them that you don’t exactly care for. I was just saying before that one can never be complete, one cannot have some qualities without losing another, and it truly shows. I cannot be perfect, he can’t be perfect and I just have to choose what I care about the most in life and prioritize that. That is why life is so beautiful. It really is an unstable, fragile hot mess that teeters back in forth in a chaotic, yet possesses just enough security to endure. Maybe one day we will achieve perfection, and that is why continue to evolve, but we are not at that day yet.

The internet and complex advancement of our technology and interconnectedness systems have projected an illusion onto us that this perfection can be attained. That there is a way to achieve everything you want in life and more. I thought I was getting closer to that perfection by following the path of college and getting a computer science degree for financial security, but now that I am here, I know that there is SO much more to do all of the damn time to get to where I want to be. Is that what I even want ? What do I even want in life? What do I truly enjoy ? What do I constantly think about, not in the malicious ever-lasting way I typically do, but in a peaceful exciting and passionate way? Do I have true passions? Or is it just a manifestation of what I believe will gain me the most outwardly validation? These are the times that I need to slow down. To really reflect on my life and the world, accept my past for something that is unchangeable, and live my life in a way that is stimulating and free from stress.

I am not truly sure what life I want to live now, everything seems to change for me by the week. But I do know now that my head is more clear, is that while I have to do have to tend to my to do list and take care of my responsibilities and actualize my goals, that I am exactly where I am supposed to be and life in its true essence can be enjoyed in its devoid of perfection.

Step by Step they say. They plead for one more kiss, but it doesn’t ever seem to be enough. Suddenly, flashes of magenta orchids and a black girl smiling in the garden of youth breaks through my vision . A grand, ceramic fountain grounds the center, a pristine dream of crystal water sparkles out from the top and Dazzles out with an overflowing glow. Then in a flash of torched holes and heated tears, images of a dusty wooden floor Raped strands of dark hair and a teacup of stale earl grey residue Overshadows the blissful scene. My heart aches, now regretting my refusal of the kiss, kneeling to my holy ornaments for another chance of redemption; and another drink. Through blurred eyes, peaks through a pink flower on my nightstand reminding me of my primitive sins.

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I remember the tales my father would tell me of his youth,

Flashes of a transparent film appear in my head

Pictured in a deep golden, hazy glaze

Empty in spirit but enthusiastic in the tone

In awe of the words slipping from his lips, every detail perfectly curated

to cast a projection of a photograph onto me, blinding and deafening

me to a state of euphoric paralysis.

A faceless boy walks through the door,

timid in posture, curls gasping for air

it looks like he is starting to levitate.

His eyes grow bleak and tearful while his claws

grab his neck ripping away whatever entity is trying to steal his life.

I look at my father to signal to go help the boy, but he is also stuck,

hysterically laughing at my fevered eyes. He chants

“It’s just a movie! Don’t be scared.”

I glance again, and the boy had seemed to dissipate into a pile of somber ashes and coal

burning at the bottom of a lively fire.

Fidgeting my way back into existence, I find that I am just in my childhood living room,

left with the fireplace

And sounds of lingering chuckles.

For a second, my father looked quite juvenile, but I could tell the light in him was dim

“the mental realm plays tricks on the physical.”

echoed in my head in the same soulless voice

that holds my memories.

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From the Circadian Rhythm, Time Lives in our Cell Tissue

After many days, I am back. It has taken me a while, but I am finally coming back to my senses. If it wasn’t for the lexapro, I would have freaked out over how fast and numbingly mindless these past three days were. One could ask me what I did just 24 hrs ago and I would just shrug. I’m trying not to overthink and consider it as a sign to relax my body and take things at ease.

Self-awareness Time!

My body tends to move in cycles, there is a calm period as I am experiencing as of right now that lasts a couple of days. A grasp for knowledge is all I care about. Nothing infiltrates my mind except for the microbiology of our brain or the quantum physics of our reality or psychological factors of our appearance as para-social creatures. This is my favorite period. An actual anticipation for the future, the planning, the getting my shit together from the hot mess that I have experienced in the past week. I get so excited that I start taking on everything at once, and this where the danger lies...

Can I do this photoshoot? Yes! Can I go to a museum with person A and then get dinner with person B an hour later? Of course? Can I do my job, travel for a week, while simanteanousouly trying to balance my 3 budding hobbies? No problem!!

I exceed limitation in every sort of a sense, flying through the my days without a care in the world, like I no longer feel fear, just a rush to my goals and success: my only desire.

My mind races so fast, that I don’t even remember what sleep is (In this moment I realize that this sort of sounds like BPD lol). I am THAT bitch, everyone around me wants to be me, consume my energy. I am living life to the max.

Then one day I feel a twinge of fatigue, so subtle that I think of it as an inconvenience, not as a warning, but more so as a test. I keep burning through the days.

I begin to snap more, get more quiet, become slower in my pace. I don’t understand why this is happening? I’m getting some amount of sleep and nourishment why can I not get back to my peak? I continue to ignore these feelings. Please one more hour! One more day! I promise I will rest then!

Nope. The circadian rhythm waits for no one. I crash. HARD. Not into a deer or a car, I would say, but right off the curb into the forest at the dead at night. I feel and see nothing but black, my existence becomes numb and I can’t even find the strength to reach out my arm for support.

Slowly, I make my way out of the destroyed car and up the hill as dawn creaks through the reflective horizon and lagging trees.

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It is a hard pattern to break. I tend to always ignore my body, and I do it to an extent where I just go completely blind and deaf, I am not truly here. It’s so funny because I always forget that I am just a biological being. Why do I believe that I have the power of a God when I am merely flesh, bones, and have a literal nicotine addiction. I don’t know what comes over me, maybe it’s just capitalism or it really is BPD, but I’m coming to face myself in a mirror that I am not the epitome of my reality or human experience but just a by-product of the physical world’s experience.

I cannot live without you or her or him, I am not even an I. Just an it of a that. Maybe I am not explaining this realization to the best of my abilities, but the more I read of Kant, the better these excerpts will make more sense. He said “the only world we can know is the world created by the innate structure of our minds and thus reality as it is in itself is unknowable”. The way I see it, I am chasing and chasing and exerting myself to unhealthy measures for a physical realm that has no measures; no end but self-implosion. Evolution is a mere reference, not to a more perfect being but to a better understanding of the physical world. We think that we are heading into the right direction, but there is no right without left, no good without harm. There is always a sacrifice.

It is truly hard to conceptualize that our consciousness is only a reflection of the patterns of our world; my mind is a biological database, that had millions of years to gather and sync data. These flowers across from me are incredibly beautiful in my highly filtered sense of sweet fragrances and colorful visuals, tuning in to the sole guidance of our kind-fear of death. I have wondered what the world would be like without the constraints of our fearful perception, but I guess it would just look like nothing in the limited definition of what I believe nothing is (which is very terrifying). 

Thinking of my mind as a projector or even a tea bag strainer is something that I can’t actually wrap my brain around. How does a relative feel like a relative when their absolute is the relative? Kant would probably just shake my head at me, and say “that’s the whole point”.

This is the peak of my limited time here in the biological sense. After these next couple of years, my brain will begin to deteriorate, my hips grow stiff, and eye sight become weak. I try to not think of it as an actuality, and I think that is what saves me from the worry. But my constant restlessness to learn and do everything may be an indication that my brain is telling me that my time here has an end.

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Mu

Hovering over a boundless plane of grass

a herd of cattle can be seen

Crowded like insects sucking

on the sweet honey that is stuck on the corner

Of the edge of the world.

Zooming into the field,

their tails and ears become visible.

Their assorted patterns blend together

Displaying a moving mosaic painting.

And once you get closer the sight of black beady eyes

Strike you and the smell of manure

Makes the scene unseemly and more unbearable to

be in the presence of.

The first screech from a hefty bison

Makes it more clear that you are

Witnessing a mother

Crying out for her stolen child

Taken away in rope and shackles.

But the realization won’t fully hit you

until you cut deep into the flesh

And Swallow her dreams.

I’m realizing that the life I am currently living is soon coming to an end. It’s very scary and exciting and confusing at the same time, but I just feel that very soon life is going to take me by storm. I always say that I should value my calm downtimes because I never know how much that I will miss the serenity once life becomes more chaotic.

Talking to a friend, just made me realize why I value our friendship so much. The openness and vulnerability that we share with each other is something that I have never really found in other people. All of my life, I’ve just been surrounded by deeply hurt, yet avoidant people. Those that have been carrying the emotional baggage of our ancestors for generations, and become succumbed to the pressures of a white patriarchal world. I can’t blame them for doing so. It takes an unhealthy amount of introspection and isolation to get to this point. Sometimes it feels that the way my mind works is literally just a coping mechanism for existing…maybe everyone feels that way.

The neglect, the manipulation, the mental exhaustion that I have faced over the years, I am starting to learn that none of these were ever my fault. I have endlessly let people step over my boundaries (for a long time I didn’t even have any) and my accommodating mindset has lead to a severe self-neglect on my own accord. I was always thinking of having to become a better person so others can feel more comfortable around me. It’s all outwardly. But I am done with that shit.

I have not finished Fred Moten’s Blackness and Nothingness, but it is an Afro-pessimist piece that Blackness cannot exist without relation to whiteness. That our sense of self has been so diluted to a sub-human, classless collective that can’t think for ourselves but for the others around us. Our existence for centuries has just been based on fungibility that it basically unattainable for us to view ourselves as a single entity.

The more I read, the more everything starts to make sense. The fact that community is such an important moral, is so nuanced because on one hand we have been reduced by our white masters that we are nothing but a herd of cattle but also because our friends and family and culture and music and ideas and interconnectedness are the sole reason why our race have not been killed off completely. Our philosophy to always see random black people as our family determination to carry each other on our backs, may seem primal to white standards (to not being able to differentiate other beings as being completely separate and irrelevant) but it is the exact reason why we exist today.

A mutual friend’s girlfriend’s cousin could get into Harvard and I would still feel the same exact joy as if my own sister did the same. Our love just runs so deep and I am realizing that these emotions are not necessarily a bad thing. Primal does not inherently equal sub-standard.

I want to say that I am very proud of myself. For giving this time to be patient to organize my thoughts and my willingness to always fight. It is not a natural thing for me, but I am trying to unlearn pessimistic thinking and self-doubt. I am starting to fully realize my self-worth and giving people far less opportunity to prove to me that they don’t value me as a real person. For far too long I have been used as an emotional outlet. Not as actual human being but as someone they can just use as an energy source.

I am not a gift giver, I am not a very physically or verbally affectionate person; though nice at times, these things seem like capitalist and superficial ways of connecting to someone. My love comes from empowering someone, from listening to them, to always making that person feel that their existence, their emotions, their intrusive thoughts are sound and real. That we live in a world that is almost unbearable and just being there in all of their glory in all of their flaws and edges that they are enough.

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feminine melancholia

Head first in the never ending river of living.

Submerged, you are now suffocated with tears.

Your ears start to bleed and eyes dissolve into a gooey paste.

Your nails start to chip away from the harsh currents of the rising tide.

You feel the water give your brain a massage as it rushes  into the hollow head.

Finally as your tongue gradually goes numb,

You begin to laugh at the silence.

But the abrupt surge of water down your throat

Reminds you that you are dying.

You come up for air before you go fully blind

Oceanic Feeling and Communist Affect:

The oceanic as a depressive denial, a form of symbolic suicide.

feminine melancholia with the “lethal ocean.”

women gain a kind of protective omnipotence by “limitlessly spreading her constrained sorrow” to achieve a “hallucinated completeness” (74). In a sense, Kristeva’s oceanic is a kind of premature death that is paradoxically a preemptive defense against death.

some ways melancholia itself is a feminized experience insofar as Kristeva characterizes it as an inability to properly symbolize

mysticism: being one with god

Perhaps, rather than trying to purge, disavow, avoid, or control, the “traumatic excitation” of ocean feeling, it makes more sense to dwell in it, to silence the repulsive dread of maternal suffocation, to inhabit the feeling (getting filled-up and blissed-out) knowing full well that on the other side of the experience lies an opportunity to assimilate the gift (of direct knowledge of the space beyond and outside the ego) by processing and naming it (in psychoanalysis or through artistic creation and other acts of sublimation).

other words, the writer or artist must “submerge” and then come to the surface for air.

The gap opened up by the oceanic state creates tension, frustration, and perhaps even sadness. When the oceanic state is over and the artist’s cognitive faculties return, she has already lost it. However, artistic creation itself can become a way to mourn the lost state (and its attendant feeling of completeness) when the artist succeeds in finding a substitute for that which always eludes the subject.

They know that no matter how many signifiers they spill they will never be able to fully capture the affective states that they pass through.

We form constellations. Our bodies are never isolated, are always enmeshed in shifting patterns of relations. Scattered across space, our selves form patterns, trace connections ethical but unseen. They give us consistency and form outside of our solitude. When we make our connections material, our constellations take shape, become tactile, make worlds” (Friendship 62).

The uncontainability of blackness, like oceanic feeling, deconstructs notions of the subject as bounded.

In trauma studies many scholars have noted that people who have experienced trauma do not experience themselves as selves at all.

Oceanic Feeling and Communist Affect

Now that I have read all of this I have come to conclusions I have realized that what i experience is sound. The little bits of delusion, the “breaths” of essence, the time skips, the moments of active “unconsciousness” are all apart of this same notion of oceanic feelings. Something entirely so overwhelming that you cannot even fathom any explanation or even a starting point of where to begin sorting through this intense emotions of being.

The way music feels within my ears, I can feel it, I can resonate with it, but why can I not describe the characteristics that arise when listening? Human language possess such little power in creating symbolic and materialized speech for such abstract expression. That is why I feel so helpless. Trying so hard in translating my experiences with such limited ways of communicative articulation. Socializing is hard because to me, my ideas and beliefs make sense, for the most part. But my reasonings are not in a way that I can convey socially.

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