Self Portrait, pen and paper, January 2013
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Friday, January 18, 2013
Damnatio Memoriae
Damnatio memoriae-
The phrase itself widely forgotten
Or unknown, it's meaning not so much,
That frightful spark that leaps from the bonfire of history,
To catch those who shine too bright
Too strange in their bleak setting,
The names condemned -
Damnatio memoriae.
Black ink on pages obscure more than words,
More than the sum of lost letters,
A cartouche chiseled away,
A wall wiped clean of thoughts in blood.
Heresies breed fear and fervor -
The strangeness of a fellow might decide his fate,
The ban of his words might shape the world.
Names ripped from lips and public record
Lay buried in the ash heap of history,
Gods and man have suffered the same fate,
Some known only by their absence -
Defaced statues, faces, names,
Painted out of memory or thought.
Some blanks stare back more conspicuous than others,
Other times the condemnation worked.
Damnatio Memoriae -
Even kings could be struck -
Cults of a god that offends,
Men of plots that failed,
Friends or generals who said the wrong thing -
Who knows what we were made to forget
By people history itself may not remember.
Enough is lost without the purposeful censure of knowledge,
Enough is written freely that cannot be read.
Man has enough to decipher from the ancient
Without worrying what may be covered up.
I can think of no greater crime or waste,
Nothing more wicked dreamt of by man
Than the eradication of record and fact.
We were lost when Alexandria burned,
There has never been a greater degradation
Of man by man himself.
No loss of life can compare to the loss of reason,
The effacement of such hard-bought knowledge.
There is not a crueler thing we could have done
Than this, the reprehension of history -
Damnatio memoriae -
May such practices be forgotten.
The phrase itself widely forgotten
Or unknown, it's meaning not so much,
That frightful spark that leaps from the bonfire of history,
To catch those who shine too bright
Too strange in their bleak setting,
The names condemned -
Damnatio memoriae.
Black ink on pages obscure more than words,
More than the sum of lost letters,
A cartouche chiseled away,
A wall wiped clean of thoughts in blood.
Heresies breed fear and fervor -
The strangeness of a fellow might decide his fate,
The ban of his words might shape the world.
Names ripped from lips and public record
Lay buried in the ash heap of history,
Gods and man have suffered the same fate,
Some known only by their absence -
Defaced statues, faces, names,
Painted out of memory or thought.
Some blanks stare back more conspicuous than others,
Other times the condemnation worked.
Damnatio Memoriae -
Even kings could be struck -
Cults of a god that offends,
Men of plots that failed,
Friends or generals who said the wrong thing -
Who knows what we were made to forget
By people history itself may not remember.
Enough is lost without the purposeful censure of knowledge,
Enough is written freely that cannot be read.
Man has enough to decipher from the ancient
Without worrying what may be covered up.
I can think of no greater crime or waste,
Nothing more wicked dreamt of by man
Than the eradication of record and fact.
We were lost when Alexandria burned,
There has never been a greater degradation
Of man by man himself.
No loss of life can compare to the loss of reason,
The effacement of such hard-bought knowledge.
There is not a crueler thing we could have done
Than this, the reprehension of history -
Damnatio memoriae -
May such practices be forgotten.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Post The Eleventh: Impetus and Trepidation
Hello again lovely readers. As some of you may have picked up from the title of this post I find myself in something of a 'good news/bad news' situation, so I'll get the bad (perhaps bad is a bit harsh...unseen and suddenly quite important would perhaps be a better of putting it) out of the way first if you don't mind. Lubbock Texas... the name conjures up images of redneck swine, thoughts of Bud-swilling, gun-toting, bible-thumping, cousin-fucking idiots, and it seems that may be where Nathan's foreseeable future - his next step on his educational path - lies, since Rice is out of the picture for the time being. This leaves me in the position of choosing whether to stay in Houston in a home I love and a well known comfort-zone, or to relocate with my husband who I also love to a place I've never been filled with 'people' I wouldn't be caught dead with. The Evangelical overtones of the place alone is enough to send a fun-loving gal like me running for the hills. I've no business with such "good, God-lovin' folk" as those, and I'm sure they'd want nothing from me. Besides I might be turned into a pillar of salt as I left dear Houston, but enough of this fun. Nothing's certain yet, and the music program there at Texas Tech is supposed to be great, especially for tenors. I've survived worse for longer, I'll survive whatever becomes of this mess.
Now that the majority of the 'trepidation' bit of this post is dealt with, as well as the outer more tangible thoughts of the post, it's time to move on to the 'impetus' leg of our little verbal jaunt. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's thought of what their motivations are, their drive and reason - I just obsess about it more than most, probably due to the fact that I have the leisure of spare time for such inward reflection and questioning. Still despite all the thought and worry and hours of silent introspective hell I've gone through, I feel as though I'm still a stranger to myself, to my heart and its goals. I feel I don't at all grasp what it is that makes me go, what end I really strive for. I feel that I'm not aimlessly wandering through life, but that I'm on my way to some important function, though what I can't remember.
I find myself often torn between experience in and of itself, and the morals I learn from said experience. I can't tell which I live for - the lesson or the teacher. I'm not sure I ever could tell, but somehow that rift has been becoming clearer and clearer to me each day, as if I were approaching some fork in my path, and I can't for the life of me say which way I should go. Is it knowledge or sensation I seek, and which would better me as a person, or better serve those around me? Both seem to have a certain selfish bent that frightens me, I already find myself fighting an conceitedly egomaniacal nature on a daily basis - what would this determined newly motivated self seek or serve? Experience for experience's sake or insight and education through occurrence, through learning? This question has long weighed on my mind, and now as this impending change seems to swell and loom just at perception's edge it weighs heavier still.
The question of motivation was more of a novel, hypothetical thought in my stagnant, unchanging lifestyle - a moot kind of 'what if' of no real consequence. With real change - real inexorable experience rearing up on the inevitable horizon my idle wondering has suddenly taken on a more serious note, something with potentially dire or at least life-altering residuum. A choice is approaching, and faster than I'd have liked, though I suppose most decisions of this nature come about quicker than we'd like - which is to say in our lifetimes. One way or another - for better, worse, or unknown eventualities - a fork in the road lays fast ahead, and I don't know which way to turn. I guess that the trepidation bit was a bit more embedded with this worry about impetus than I thought. I guess there really was no good news I had to add here, other than the possibility for hope in any uncertainty. In the unknown man lets his worst fears and greatest hopes exsist unchallenged, and until I set foot down some path or another there is only a comfortable ignorance. But Shrodinger has to open the box and see if the cat's dead, and whether I'm in it for the lesson or the journey itself, I will have to face new places, new people, new experiences - one way or the other. The sleeper shall awaken.
Now that the majority of the 'trepidation' bit of this post is dealt with, as well as the outer more tangible thoughts of the post, it's time to move on to the 'impetus' leg of our little verbal jaunt. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's thought of what their motivations are, their drive and reason - I just obsess about it more than most, probably due to the fact that I have the leisure of spare time for such inward reflection and questioning. Still despite all the thought and worry and hours of silent introspective hell I've gone through, I feel as though I'm still a stranger to myself, to my heart and its goals. I feel I don't at all grasp what it is that makes me go, what end I really strive for. I feel that I'm not aimlessly wandering through life, but that I'm on my way to some important function, though what I can't remember.
I find myself often torn between experience in and of itself, and the morals I learn from said experience. I can't tell which I live for - the lesson or the teacher. I'm not sure I ever could tell, but somehow that rift has been becoming clearer and clearer to me each day, as if I were approaching some fork in my path, and I can't for the life of me say which way I should go. Is it knowledge or sensation I seek, and which would better me as a person, or better serve those around me? Both seem to have a certain selfish bent that frightens me, I already find myself fighting an conceitedly egomaniacal nature on a daily basis - what would this determined newly motivated self seek or serve? Experience for experience's sake or insight and education through occurrence, through learning? This question has long weighed on my mind, and now as this impending change seems to swell and loom just at perception's edge it weighs heavier still.
The question of motivation was more of a novel, hypothetical thought in my stagnant, unchanging lifestyle - a moot kind of 'what if' of no real consequence. With real change - real inexorable experience rearing up on the inevitable horizon my idle wondering has suddenly taken on a more serious note, something with potentially dire or at least life-altering residuum. A choice is approaching, and faster than I'd have liked, though I suppose most decisions of this nature come about quicker than we'd like - which is to say in our lifetimes. One way or another - for better, worse, or unknown eventualities - a fork in the road lays fast ahead, and I don't know which way to turn. I guess that the trepidation bit was a bit more embedded with this worry about impetus than I thought. I guess there really was no good news I had to add here, other than the possibility for hope in any uncertainty. In the unknown man lets his worst fears and greatest hopes exsist unchallenged, and until I set foot down some path or another there is only a comfortable ignorance. But Shrodinger has to open the box and see if the cat's dead, and whether I'm in it for the lesson or the journey itself, I will have to face new places, new people, new experiences - one way or the other. The sleeper shall awaken.
Friday, January 11, 2013
Post The Tenth: Lineage and Other Musings
'I enjoy being a girl' is not a song you're ever likely to hear me sing. It's not just the physical disadvantages - though there are easily enough of those to fill a tome or two - and it's not just the way people treat me, or how I feel, or to be more precise who I feel I am at heart and the way it conflicts utterly with my what i was born. No, it's not just these things or even their grand sum - it's being the end of the line.
Well, now I've got that little disclaimer out of the way, let me go ahead and continue. As I said - it's not so much the personal disadvantages to myself (which in all honesty I've grown to almost cherish in a sort of self-love/loathe relationship due to the ways I've had to better myself or find greater strength to overcome them) that I especially despise - it's the detrimental, irreparable breach my birth caused to an old, perhaps not-too-noble but definitely note-worthy line. I suppose the same is true of every daughter - she breaks a chain that runs back to the beginning of humanity in her family - father, son, father, son, father, son and so forth. Perhaps it's my love of continuity and pattern that drives this loathing like a thorn into my side, perhaps it's some misplaced family pride. Hell, it could just be my own perverse misogynistic self-loathing trying to find some new excuse to fuel itself, some new outlet. All I know for sure is that I hate it. I hate the day of my birth, I hate the end it heralded. All I can do is pray my father sowed a few bastard sons before me - that our line might continue in blood if not in name. To be that one defective link that breaks the chain is a thought I can hardly bare.
I don't believe necessarily that being born a son would make me happier, make my parents love me more, or make my life easier - but at least our family's name and blood would live on. I sigh at how strange this must sound to most - bloodlines and pedigrees and all that nonsense does seem to have been mostly abandoned nowadays. Growing up my father's child and pupil instilled me with certain outdated mindsets and mannerisms mostly better left to some eclectic not-quite-existent past, a Zeitgeist of a time and place that probably never was, leaving me to live a life distanced from the masses, to walk my own uncertain path in a world slightly off from theirs, a reality extricated from their expectations and experiences. I t makes relating with others difficult, but gives me ways of seeing things most wouldn't think of, not to mention with the way Victorianalia and old-world-made-new fashions and thoughts seem to be coming into bloom over the last decade or so (especially these last few years), that I find myself on the cutting edge of old-fashioned-om.
I digress, though I suppose that is what one's expected to do in musings. Never the less I had a bit more I wanted to say on the topic of my non-manhood. Daddy issues that would make Freud giddy and misplaced outdated sensibilities aside, I'm still not sure how I feel being a woman. Growing up I loathed it, hated everything about it. I told my mother at 5 how much I wished I was a boy, and with her being a die-hard feminazi she was immediately horrified, blaming media and mankind for my situation, telling me to be proud of my non-dangling genitalia, going on and on and on about how men are the root of all evil and how perfect and infallible womankind was... the typical misguided American feminist spiel I've grown to loathe so. On an amusing note, she tried desperately to change her tone when I came out as a (at the time and on up till Nathan) lesbian a little less than a year later. Suddenly she was singing the praises of penises and grandchildren. Typical hypocritical bullshit, pardon my language. As was trying to say before my hideously coffee-addled brain wandered off again, I hated it. I hated being a girl, I hated being weak, physically and emotionally.
It was something that drove me with a burning passion, a desire - no NEED - to better myself, to be more of a man than the men around me, to be stronger, tougher, meaner, smarter, better in every way I could manage. This Amazonian zeal guided me through the better part of my childhood and adolescence, and still leads me to a lesser extant today. I have little doubt it will be there throughout my life, shaming me when I need it to, driving me to become better at all things I try my hand at. Were I born a boy, I don't know if I'd still have such a drive, perhaps I'd be content in my life, complacent - a thought I find truly horrifying and disgusting. Perhaps my gender-based handicap is less of a curse and more of a mixed blessing. Regardless I've slowly and begrudgingly learned a certain respect for it - or at least for the drive it instills in me. Besides, what use is there in lamenting the irreversible?
I've even grown to enjoy some female traits and interests, namely beauty and fashion, something I'd long enjoyed in my partners but never considered for me until these last few years. Speaking of said past relationships, some of you may wonder how it is I can so loathe womankind yet enjoy their company as I once did....frequently. Simple - I've held them always to a different standard. It also helps that it's their bodies and not those of men (well, not usually) that interest me. The beauty and grace of their frames, the light in their faces, the propensity for such deep kindness or cruelty - the way they know their way with words around a person's heart - these things excite in me a certain undeniable interest. The company of women is what I lust for carnally speaking, but it is the company of men I prefer where my heart and mind are concerned (though there have been and forever will be exceptions to this as there are for every other rule spoken or silently known.) Cherchez la femme they say - look for the woman, and when there's trouble for me it tends to be true - it's either my feelings for a woman or as a woman that have got me stuck in whatever mess I find myself in. This rift between me and my sex tends to kill any relationship I strike up with girls, and those that last are far from healthy. It's an abusive cycle like any other - but as I've mentioned earlier, patterns seem to hold a certain spot in my heart that I can't shake. I never claimed to be a good person, only self aware.
My relationships with men can hardly be called healthier - my ardent admiration for the ones I love seems to manifest itself in spats of envious cruelty between spells of obsessive ardor and boot-licking. To be fair it does take a certain kind of man for me to fall for, only those I could in some way call my better (which is where that envy randomly kicks in) and usually only those as damaged or strange as myself. I'll say this though - making those guys smile is the one of the few motivations that could outstrip that of my loathing or anger. It's the closest thing I have to balance in my twisted heart and mind, and I'm lucky enough to have two of those guys under the same roof as me.
Bitter ravings aside, I TURNED 21 EVERYONE!! And I promise it was one Hell of a party, in both senses of the phrase. I won't say more than that, at least not this post, other than to mention that despite my best efforts I failed to get drunk, and we had to drive someone to the hospital in the morning - the perfect end to a perfect disaster, though admittedly as far as disasters go it was a pretty fun one. Also since my last post I've been appointed as High Priestess of Slaanesh among a certain group of friends (Slaanesh is the Chaos god of excess, debauchery, decadence - The Dark Prince of pain and pleasure, patron of both terror and beauty, Herald of Indulgence, She-Who-Thirsts and knows our thirsts in kind... you know - my kind of fellow.) Other than that there's not much to say - I've gotten back into sewing, I'm on a diet, Miette's getting fixed today, and that Legion obsession I mentioned shows no signs of dying down anytime soon. Other than that, all quiet on the Endiry front.
Well, I've probably done enough damage for one day, or several really. Sorry for unloading my emotional baggage on anyone who's actually read this far, and sorry to anyone who now knows me better than they'd like, though I did try to warn you all I'm not right in the head. Anyways I hope you all have lovely (and hopefully not as twisted as mine - unless you're into that kind of thing) days, dreams, and darling things to hold onto in your lives! Auf Wiedersehen loves!
[So I should probably go ahead and warn you all in advance - MAJOR DADDY ISSUES INCOMING. There, you've been warned. Please feel free to groan in disgust and stop reading there if you like - gods know I won't blame you.]
Well, now I've got that little disclaimer out of the way, let me go ahead and continue. As I said - it's not so much the personal disadvantages to myself (which in all honesty I've grown to almost cherish in a sort of self-love/loathe relationship due to the ways I've had to better myself or find greater strength to overcome them) that I especially despise - it's the detrimental, irreparable breach my birth caused to an old, perhaps not-too-noble but definitely note-worthy line. I suppose the same is true of every daughter - she breaks a chain that runs back to the beginning of humanity in her family - father, son, father, son, father, son and so forth. Perhaps it's my love of continuity and pattern that drives this loathing like a thorn into my side, perhaps it's some misplaced family pride. Hell, it could just be my own perverse misogynistic self-loathing trying to find some new excuse to fuel itself, some new outlet. All I know for sure is that I hate it. I hate the day of my birth, I hate the end it heralded. All I can do is pray my father sowed a few bastard sons before me - that our line might continue in blood if not in name. To be that one defective link that breaks the chain is a thought I can hardly bare.
I don't believe necessarily that being born a son would make me happier, make my parents love me more, or make my life easier - but at least our family's name and blood would live on. I sigh at how strange this must sound to most - bloodlines and pedigrees and all that nonsense does seem to have been mostly abandoned nowadays. Growing up my father's child and pupil instilled me with certain outdated mindsets and mannerisms mostly better left to some eclectic not-quite-existent past, a Zeitgeist of a time and place that probably never was, leaving me to live a life distanced from the masses, to walk my own uncertain path in a world slightly off from theirs, a reality extricated from their expectations and experiences. I t makes relating with others difficult, but gives me ways of seeing things most wouldn't think of, not to mention with the way Victorianalia and old-world-made-new fashions and thoughts seem to be coming into bloom over the last decade or so (especially these last few years), that I find myself on the cutting edge of old-fashioned-om.
I digress, though I suppose that is what one's expected to do in musings. Never the less I had a bit more I wanted to say on the topic of my non-manhood. Daddy issues that would make Freud giddy and misplaced outdated sensibilities aside, I'm still not sure how I feel being a woman. Growing up I loathed it, hated everything about it. I told my mother at 5 how much I wished I was a boy, and with her being a die-hard feminazi she was immediately horrified, blaming media and mankind for my situation, telling me to be proud of my non-dangling genitalia, going on and on and on about how men are the root of all evil and how perfect and infallible womankind was... the typical misguided American feminist spiel I've grown to loathe so. On an amusing note, she tried desperately to change her tone when I came out as a (at the time and on up till Nathan) lesbian a little less than a year later. Suddenly she was singing the praises of penises and grandchildren. Typical hypocritical bullshit, pardon my language. As was trying to say before my hideously coffee-addled brain wandered off again, I hated it. I hated being a girl, I hated being weak, physically and emotionally.
It was something that drove me with a burning passion, a desire - no NEED - to better myself, to be more of a man than the men around me, to be stronger, tougher, meaner, smarter, better in every way I could manage. This Amazonian zeal guided me through the better part of my childhood and adolescence, and still leads me to a lesser extant today. I have little doubt it will be there throughout my life, shaming me when I need it to, driving me to become better at all things I try my hand at. Were I born a boy, I don't know if I'd still have such a drive, perhaps I'd be content in my life, complacent - a thought I find truly horrifying and disgusting. Perhaps my gender-based handicap is less of a curse and more of a mixed blessing. Regardless I've slowly and begrudgingly learned a certain respect for it - or at least for the drive it instills in me. Besides, what use is there in lamenting the irreversible?
I've even grown to enjoy some female traits and interests, namely beauty and fashion, something I'd long enjoyed in my partners but never considered for me until these last few years. Speaking of said past relationships, some of you may wonder how it is I can so loathe womankind yet enjoy their company as I once did....frequently. Simple - I've held them always to a different standard. It also helps that it's their bodies and not those of men (well, not usually) that interest me. The beauty and grace of their frames, the light in their faces, the propensity for such deep kindness or cruelty - the way they know their way with words around a person's heart - these things excite in me a certain undeniable interest. The company of women is what I lust for carnally speaking, but it is the company of men I prefer where my heart and mind are concerned (though there have been and forever will be exceptions to this as there are for every other rule spoken or silently known.) Cherchez la femme they say - look for the woman, and when there's trouble for me it tends to be true - it's either my feelings for a woman or as a woman that have got me stuck in whatever mess I find myself in. This rift between me and my sex tends to kill any relationship I strike up with girls, and those that last are far from healthy. It's an abusive cycle like any other - but as I've mentioned earlier, patterns seem to hold a certain spot in my heart that I can't shake. I never claimed to be a good person, only self aware.
My relationships with men can hardly be called healthier - my ardent admiration for the ones I love seems to manifest itself in spats of envious cruelty between spells of obsessive ardor and boot-licking. To be fair it does take a certain kind of man for me to fall for, only those I could in some way call my better (which is where that envy randomly kicks in) and usually only those as damaged or strange as myself. I'll say this though - making those guys smile is the one of the few motivations that could outstrip that of my loathing or anger. It's the closest thing I have to balance in my twisted heart and mind, and I'm lucky enough to have two of those guys under the same roof as me.
Bitter ravings aside, I TURNED 21 EVERYONE!! And I promise it was one Hell of a party, in both senses of the phrase. I won't say more than that, at least not this post, other than to mention that despite my best efforts I failed to get drunk, and we had to drive someone to the hospital in the morning - the perfect end to a perfect disaster, though admittedly as far as disasters go it was a pretty fun one. Also since my last post I've been appointed as High Priestess of Slaanesh among a certain group of friends (Slaanesh is the Chaos god of excess, debauchery, decadence - The Dark Prince of pain and pleasure, patron of both terror and beauty, Herald of Indulgence, She-Who-Thirsts and knows our thirsts in kind... you know - my kind of fellow.) Other than that there's not much to say - I've gotten back into sewing, I'm on a diet, Miette's getting fixed today, and that Legion obsession I mentioned shows no signs of dying down anytime soon. Other than that, all quiet on the Endiry front.
Well, I've probably done enough damage for one day, or several really. Sorry for unloading my emotional baggage on anyone who's actually read this far, and sorry to anyone who now knows me better than they'd like, though I did try to warn you all I'm not right in the head. Anyways I hope you all have lovely (and hopefully not as twisted as mine - unless you're into that kind of thing) days, dreams, and darling things to hold onto in your lives! Auf Wiedersehen loves!
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Post The Ninth: An Apology And Half Confession
Good morning lovely readers. Those of you with more than an ounce of perception may have noticed the slightly morbid tone of a few of my posts. I'd like to go ahead and apologize for this tendency, it's hardly intentional and really quite unbecoming after a while. I never intended for this blog to become some dread dirge, but rather a more lighthearted vessel for my airier musings. Alas it seems instead to be sinking further and further into the quagmire of morose self-reflection, having taken on too weighty and serious a ballast.
Such habits are far from baseless though - it's simply that until these last few years, all I really knew within the sanctum of self were these darker moods, so putting such things to word has become a well-practiced art. Happiness, on the other hand, I am new to. Its soaring pinnacles, giddy heights, its endless seas of inspiration I have scarce begun to explore, a frightened child in a bright new land. I feel a deep joy, as deep as any sorrow's roots within my soul. It is there as often, if not more so, that I spend my days internal. I've yet to put words to most of the wonders found there, to the giddy childish glee I feel nearly every day. Looking back through my posts I see I've not done this part of me justice in the slightest.
To be completely fair, I have been under a decent bit of stress as of late. Playing 'shoulder-to-cry-on' for so many at a time without considering myself worthy of letting myself feel... It ended poorly the other night. I managed to hurt not one but both men I love most in this world, and then all I could do was weep and break down, making them feel bad and in turn making me feel even worse. Something snapped in me that night, and I'm glad my friends are as forgiving as they are - I'm not sure I would be, but I suppose that's why they're my betters, through and through. I aspire to be like them - to be as good, as loyal and loving. Their selflessness that night touched me in a way I cannot describe, and I know It will be one of those bittersweet memories I will carry with me for all my life. For a while the next day even, I feared I had cut short a beautiful friendship, though looking at it now I see how foolish I was - such a staunch and steadfast cohort would hardly cast me aside for such an idiotic offence as mine that night.
Still, that dread of loss awoke in me realizations, good ones - fear not, I'm not about to go into another of my moribund laments this early in the day. I realized how dear these companions are to me, how much of my heart and mind they take up, and how lucky I am to have them. They are a blessing I never earned - somehow I must have curried some sympathy from on high (or even the saints and gods lack the patience to put up with my morose mumblings and toilsome whines.) One way or another I am certain that without them mine would be a sorry world indeed. Even typing about them's enough to bring a silly smile to my often too-serious face. They bring out the very best of me, and stoke the fires of passions that without such joy lay smoldering, banked and forgotten. Truly they are the greatest friends anyone could ever ask for.
Such habits are far from baseless though - it's simply that until these last few years, all I really knew within the sanctum of self were these darker moods, so putting such things to word has become a well-practiced art. Happiness, on the other hand, I am new to. Its soaring pinnacles, giddy heights, its endless seas of inspiration I have scarce begun to explore, a frightened child in a bright new land. I feel a deep joy, as deep as any sorrow's roots within my soul. It is there as often, if not more so, that I spend my days internal. I've yet to put words to most of the wonders found there, to the giddy childish glee I feel nearly every day. Looking back through my posts I see I've not done this part of me justice in the slightest.
To be completely fair, I have been under a decent bit of stress as of late. Playing 'shoulder-to-cry-on' for so many at a time without considering myself worthy of letting myself feel... It ended poorly the other night. I managed to hurt not one but both men I love most in this world, and then all I could do was weep and break down, making them feel bad and in turn making me feel even worse. Something snapped in me that night, and I'm glad my friends are as forgiving as they are - I'm not sure I would be, but I suppose that's why they're my betters, through and through. I aspire to be like them - to be as good, as loyal and loving. Their selflessness that night touched me in a way I cannot describe, and I know It will be one of those bittersweet memories I will carry with me for all my life. For a while the next day even, I feared I had cut short a beautiful friendship, though looking at it now I see how foolish I was - such a staunch and steadfast cohort would hardly cast me aside for such an idiotic offence as mine that night.
Still, that dread of loss awoke in me realizations, good ones - fear not, I'm not about to go into another of my moribund laments this early in the day. I realized how dear these companions are to me, how much of my heart and mind they take up, and how lucky I am to have them. They are a blessing I never earned - somehow I must have curried some sympathy from on high (or even the saints and gods lack the patience to put up with my morose mumblings and toilsome whines.) One way or another I am certain that without them mine would be a sorry world indeed. Even typing about them's enough to bring a silly smile to my often too-serious face. They bring out the very best of me, and stoke the fires of passions that without such joy lay smoldering, banked and forgotten. Truly they are the greatest friends anyone could ever ask for.
Post Somewhere Between The Eighth And Ninth: Void
I'd like to go ahead and give my sincere appy-polly-loggies in advance sweet readers as my mind seems to be slightly askew this lovely night, so if you notice an increased inclination toward verbal meandering, well, don't be too terribly surprised. It's nothing to fret or fuss over, I've never been right in the head - tonight simply happens to be the epitome of wrong-headedness on my part, what between the spinning fluttering dimness of the room; the worried stress-filled bite-marks that grace my fingers like rings of rubies; the way overheard sentences seem to end themselves before beginning , swallowing up whole clauses or suddenly changing meaning and measure completely... The world giddily jiggles by before my eyes, too fast to catch hold of, but so painfully boringly slow! And in my head the cacophony swells and swells in some grandiose maddening opus of discordant voices all screeching to be heard over one another in this quiet little room. Past regrets roar belicosely at idealistic daydreams, while manic and ardent inspirations leap and bound about, blind to all else, rolling forth like some ecstatic juggernaut crushing reason and sense beneath its holy wheels. Such a scene is set in my mind as it tries to grasp the real world unfolding around it.
All of the above said, I find the overall theme of the mercurial mental symphony tonight is of the void, that slippery formless thoughtless bleak between thoughts, between even dreams. I find myself constantly rolling towards its brink, its gaping maw of nothingness. I can think of no more terrifying hell, no more maddening torment, and so I allow the chaotic inner chorus to continue in the hope that it will keep me wary, or at least afloat above that murksome deadly calm. I feel like Odysseus, bound to the mast to keep me from ecstatic surrender to that Siren of pure nothingness. As much as I fear it, I must also admit a deep fascination with it. To think of what may lay there, unknowable to the mind, or at least to that of humans; to someday past life be free to plumb its veiled depths, to hear the whispers that lie now silent; to know thought beyond thought, and dream what even in dreams we dare not dwell on. Gods but to know! Even now I feel its bleak pull at the bottom of my mind, that tugging at base curiosity that drives our species to create and destroy. I feel a gravity to that nothing, and I know one day I'll fall too close to that night, and never wake. One day I'll sink past that hallowed liminality, into the waiting arms of oblivion. Yet I still feel a thrill, a shiver of terrified ecstasy as I brush against it accidentally, leafing from thought to thought; like a paper cut earned from carelessly turning a page. Yes, even now I hear you - lightless you beckon, voiceless you call, mindless you reach to my deepest self. I feel your fingers brush the back of my eyes, hear your whispers in the breath of corpses in my dreams - corpses with my names. I know, sweet waters of Lethe, that godless amnesty you mete out to all man. I know, and I brush my fingers across your glassy surface as I dive nearer every night. I know one day I'll dive too low, and you'll swallow me up into obscurity.
Void, if you hear, I know all this and less. When you do take me into your stillness, I will feel no more, perhaps even think no more. Mine will be one more whisper on the breath of corpses, one more body in the cold earth, or ashes upon the wind. Perhaps this is what it is to be at peace, though I never thought to feel a euphoric terror at such prospects. Nothing - enemy to man and his creation, no? Good void, wicked void, soulless sucking emptiness, why must you constantly remind me of your presence? Why must you dance and slide your way about my thoughts, like oil upon water? Why must you tickle the backs of my eyes and pull at their lids; why must you cradle my dreams in your unliving embrace? Is this the only way you can be, the only way you can know yourself - by tormenting and teasing the fragile minds of my kind? Is it a mindless searching of our souls, or is there some design to your probing - an answer you are looking for? If so, I pray to never know the question. Such thoughts weren't meant for minds like mine.
I fear I've dwelt on these musings too long already. The choir of shallower thoughts - my mental armor - seems to grow quieter by the minute. Should their voices fade completely, I shudder to to think of what consequences there could be, especially with such grim notes already creeping their ways into their songs. Perhaps they feel what I'm about, perhaps they've their own wishes concerning that void. I think I've said enough. It does not do to dwell too long on that abyssal blank.
All of the above said, I find the overall theme of the mercurial mental symphony tonight is of the void, that slippery formless thoughtless bleak between thoughts, between even dreams. I find myself constantly rolling towards its brink, its gaping maw of nothingness. I can think of no more terrifying hell, no more maddening torment, and so I allow the chaotic inner chorus to continue in the hope that it will keep me wary, or at least afloat above that murksome deadly calm. I feel like Odysseus, bound to the mast to keep me from ecstatic surrender to that Siren of pure nothingness. As much as I fear it, I must also admit a deep fascination with it. To think of what may lay there, unknowable to the mind, or at least to that of humans; to someday past life be free to plumb its veiled depths, to hear the whispers that lie now silent; to know thought beyond thought, and dream what even in dreams we dare not dwell on. Gods but to know! Even now I feel its bleak pull at the bottom of my mind, that tugging at base curiosity that drives our species to create and destroy. I feel a gravity to that nothing, and I know one day I'll fall too close to that night, and never wake. One day I'll sink past that hallowed liminality, into the waiting arms of oblivion. Yet I still feel a thrill, a shiver of terrified ecstasy as I brush against it accidentally, leafing from thought to thought; like a paper cut earned from carelessly turning a page. Yes, even now I hear you - lightless you beckon, voiceless you call, mindless you reach to my deepest self. I feel your fingers brush the back of my eyes, hear your whispers in the breath of corpses in my dreams - corpses with my names. I know, sweet waters of Lethe, that godless amnesty you mete out to all man. I know, and I brush my fingers across your glassy surface as I dive nearer every night. I know one day I'll dive too low, and you'll swallow me up into obscurity.
Void, if you hear, I know all this and less. When you do take me into your stillness, I will feel no more, perhaps even think no more. Mine will be one more whisper on the breath of corpses, one more body in the cold earth, or ashes upon the wind. Perhaps this is what it is to be at peace, though I never thought to feel a euphoric terror at such prospects. Nothing - enemy to man and his creation, no? Good void, wicked void, soulless sucking emptiness, why must you constantly remind me of your presence? Why must you dance and slide your way about my thoughts, like oil upon water? Why must you tickle the backs of my eyes and pull at their lids; why must you cradle my dreams in your unliving embrace? Is this the only way you can be, the only way you can know yourself - by tormenting and teasing the fragile minds of my kind? Is it a mindless searching of our souls, or is there some design to your probing - an answer you are looking for? If so, I pray to never know the question. Such thoughts weren't meant for minds like mine.
I fear I've dwelt on these musings too long already. The choir of shallower thoughts - my mental armor - seems to grow quieter by the minute. Should their voices fade completely, I shudder to to think of what consequences there could be, especially with such grim notes already creeping their ways into their songs. Perhaps they feel what I'm about, perhaps they've their own wishes concerning that void. I think I've said enough. It does not do to dwell too long on that abyssal blank.
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