Notebook entry on October 2, 2018
9:10 am, waiting room. People rushing, apologizing for minutes. The parking lot was full. “I’d like to make an appointment.” “How about next month?” Holding time to cram us in. This mole is new and dark in the middle of my chest. From a pale pore to an odd shape. An island, collecting the sun of my life. Forming near my heart. Doctor, please see me.
Notebook entry on October 15, 2018
With every journal I scribble the years. Wonder what’s happening. Detached from the moment, pen following behind the brain. Probably don’t write as much as I should, but it comes as it likes. And when it wants, it needs. There is no choice. No yes or no—just words coming out. So much to say, so much to miss. Where’s the space between? Do they connect? A perpendicular line across the two or parallel along the edges? Another divine intersection. Eternities we cannot see. Maybe it’s in a poem or a card. The secrets in the stars. What do they need? Nothing; anything will do. They’ll go on and on no matter what. Can we alter the course? Only forward.
Telling her how to be and when to be. “There’s a time and place for everything.” A predicament inherent to being. Everyday reflections remind her where the power lies. In the subway, the cinema, this screen. Attention doesn’t equate to better treatment. “Smile, honey” becomes “fuck you, conceited bitch.” Every dismissed stranger presents more risk of danger. “Can I buy you a drink—no?—you’re not that hot, anyway.” Standard procedure: projection after rejection. Discomfort aroused from desires denied. Hold it against her. Eyes on thighs as she walks by. Words responded but he just wanted her mouth. Reactions often halted, in fear of another attack. But she no longer holds in her expression for his convenience. Someday he’ll never want again.
3 am, can’t sleep. Don’t want to think about it anymore. Him, her. Is it possible to care and be happy? Considering place. I don’t want to label and critique every moving object. Get into debates in a digital web of 1s and 0s. So reactive by surroundings. Neurons scanning a screen won’t fix the anthropocene. Maybe I shouldn’t talk about what I think on that podcast. Me, me, me. I, I, I on the byline. Why even put it in a book? Thoughts keep coming anyway. Maybe someday I’ll write them away. Mental predispositions mix with chemical compounds. Exposing patterns in unseen conditions. Role play the foreplay ‘til climax; the end. A crisis, the meeting point. Rather read and listen. Get high and take notes. Entering a stealth mode to heal head and heart. Still migrating physically and mentally. Something I don’t take for granted. Something all humans should be able to do. Freely.
Deliberately maniacal. We lost her, in a fit of rage, conspiring to craft a message of hate on an eternal day of love. Isolation built illusions before they ascended into delusions. Grandeur and Purity. Conspiracies built from fear. “They’re not welcome here.” Where does it hurt? He’ll impregnate more deception if he doesn’t heal the wound. Murder more ties while those within buckle and harden before they shatter and break. He found someone online who shared his beliefs: hatred of Others, hatred of a system that is discovering They Aren’t Superior. So he “joined the community.” Or at least a sense of one. A virtual cult where the virus spreads. Replacing notions of what we crave, for space, for Others. They attack ~identity politics~ but only conspire with those who share their identity. We do not fetishize identity out of nerves like you do, we unite against a pattern of facts, a history of evil, shaping it into beauty and art and music in your ears. But do not fear, we are all together here. He will erase her. But not me.
what used to seek
understands
what used to pierce
holds
what used to sear
thaws
your eyes
for me
have changed
but please don’t look away
It started with a collective itch, absorbing unseen elements. We left and met here. Hopeful the unknown would be better than this. Still craving, switching spaces. The united states of bodies on the ground. Just human. Sure, we can migrate to a new state. We can evolve. But what’s next? Awareness morphing into control. A meditative/medicated existence, far removed from the jolts of the past. Blacking out the rising sun. Muting emotions. Tucking fear into a belt. Veins popping out. A splitting people. They say it doesn’t affect them, but children will singe. Blur this dirty scene, a failed humanity. Closed eyes see reality. Who cares if we can zone out? Focus on the breath. Unthinkable for many. Those who cannot escape. Those before us. Circling around fire. Making sense of sounds. They couldn’t afford to shut it all off. But we think we have the switch.
Mixed thoughts and feelings from the last few days. A prose poem about the Kavanaugh hearing & repressed memories of sexual assault.
Drinking parsley tea, watching the hearing. Disgruntled by the dirt in the details. But isn’t shit obvious? Smeared facts with his résumé (cool), his basketball practice (well done!), his grades (congrats!), and wait, his faith (still his, not this). But sir, one thing does not lead to the other. Let us explain in simple logic. Boil it down for you and drink the tea for this anxiety. If he lied about that, then would he lie about this? Seven hours of Him vs. her brought it to the surface. Manhattan, 2011. 2012? Couldn’t even tell you the year, let me check my calendar. He drugged me, pulled down my pants, and threw me in a room with his friend. Awoke from open eyes to open eyes, he behind me. I puked the whole way home, only drank one beer. Where’s the Off to these thoughts? Busy connecting the public and private. I try to distract from the past, but His face appears everywhere. September 27th, 2018 held me in a spell. After intaking the whole hearing I left to decompress and wound up in a dressing room, trying on a bra. Solace in fitting and dressing these breasts. Capitalistic bliss; an anesthetic drip. Our small is their extra large and it’s starting to seem like we’ve bitten too much. “Oh you don’t like underwires?” laughed the salesperson, “that’s cute.” This isn’t working. Still not sure what he did. Fuck that kid. Fuck all of you. Few of my exes too. The one who wouldn’t take no and the one who told me to go. To be quiet. Who gets to show rage in such a high place? Oh wait, can I show my emotions now or should I hold off a bit? Please oh please keep telling me how to be. Ha. “Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter.” Truth and lies can both cry. Read this, mister. You should be scared we don’t conform like they did. Doesn’t matter if you “like” or “don’t like” politics. Let’s call this place the divided states. Rewrite the compromise, draw a new line. Really wouldn’t give a damn, just preserve the land. Or let it burn and I’ll escort you to those fiery gates of which you believe, but don’t worry, you’ll still wake up in your bed tomorrow morning. Smash open the eyes on your head. Everything will be the same. Welcome to yourself. May that name never change. This was not written for you, or you. But, you. We see you.
Three hundred years ago he moved from Bern and changed his name from Aebi to Avey to sound a bit more neutral, a bit more American. I’ve been thinking more about what it means to be American. Who, how, why. I have some reference points. It was easy to move to Germany. Music I know is everywhere I go. My Colombian father-in-law told me to hide my passport because it might get stolen. I underestimate that blue cover. The public schools and libraries. Hiding a heritage of human sorrow and potential. Somehow still allergic to this land. Poison oak forms a resistance on the trails we blaze. Oozing with red bumps, making me question the way. I’m the non-native species. Make it more American. But how? From the jazz to the mundane. Paint the spectrum black or white. The distance between what you know and want to know lies in what you create. Between places you’ve been and places you can’t imagine. How could it be so hard to write under your parents’ roof when they gave you every neuron? Drive north on the 1. A loud bed and breakfast might be awkward. Let’s take a quarter and go explore. Another pioneer couple walking on a boneyard of tree branches. Looks like beach cheese. Sitting halfway up a Monterey cypress. Staring at the setting sun with the moon to our back. This place makes me sleepless. I heard a man inside the wall with a pickaxe. Crumbling down the structure from the inside out. But then the mother of slumber blacked out my vision with her placement of fill-in-the-box. I’m home. Horace Greeley might have told you to “Go west, young man,” but I’m called by the wild poppies and cortaderia. Those here before us. Junipero Serra paved the way, killing with faith. Priests on a mission overlook young women. Left out of the literature. I’m pulled in by the Pacific, the way redwoods hold on to their neighbors’ roots. Prioritizing nourishment. A church turned grocery store. Looking at another “All Are Welcome Here” sign made Sam ask what that says about other places. A bold statement against a dark reality. But damn this place is hard to reach.
You struggled to park an invisible car on Fillmore because your piercing was stuck to a fire hydrant. Stuck like the rest of us. Under another spell of moral authority. Believing real emotions drawn from deceptive acts. A medium slips voodoo bags in all the right places. A spiritual advisor advises a touch. A guru reaches too far. The priest hides it all. Power seeks vulnerability, speaking in silence. Those who can’t afford buy lotto tickets. Talking to God, never hearing back. Hoping and hopeless for another chance. Anything to divert attention and responsibility from this current mess. Enters the magician. Playing with projection to manipulate. To create a feeling of awe, allure, amazement. Shock value. And we love to feel, even fear. The heightened pulses and rising temperatures. Cranking up fields. Just the way the man behind the curtain likes it: wrapped in a mist of confusion. Divine delirium quiets. Shh, don’t question it. No reason to reason with fog. But what really happened? Pure deception and perception. Hinging until it breaks and you see the truth underneath the pain, the shame, the neglect, the harm. A universal craving for psychological attention. Falling into traps and release.