Groundhog's Day

Because he loves as man only, not as human being, for this reason there is in his sexual feeling something narrow, seeming wild, spiteful, time-bound, uneternal, that diminishes his art and makes it ambiguous and doubtful. It is not immaculate, it is marked by time and by passion and little of it will survive and endure. 

--Rilke on the human relationship patterns

Players only love you when they’re playing. I struck out, yet I continue to develop a game plan. When does all the strategizing end? Must it end with a broken heart, or does experience actually count for something? Can I apply anything from my past or will I simply muster up some bravado and champion the newness of it all.

My interest is determined by two things: (1) pain (when they no longer want me) or (2) boredom (when they want me too much). And every situation has fallen into one of these two deal breakers. I either obsess or fucking hate him. Is this my problem? Do I actually keep dating the same guy or is it that I go into every new guy as the same Farrah? Ghazal potential there. 

Surreality in the Dumps

I’m completely numb inside. My words in previous entries delivered a fervor I can’t maintain any longer—a passion too burdensome to bear.

There is a player of the week. This is how I got on the subject of passion. My previous entries suggested an emotional connection to the player—no matter how lame he was, or at least his case delivered a slight hint of yearning. 

I used to care about these guys as people….no. That was never the case. They were always ideals and remain so.

Indeed, I fall in love with ideas all the time, and this time it’s the most mediocre of all ideas: a heroin addict bearing my father’s name.

I mean, growing up? Making good decisions? Me? Why bother? 

I used to write about precedence a lot. It’s different now. I continue to prioritize men, but now they occupy the slot of ‘he who will break your heart’ instead of its former ‘there might be hope with this one’. 

Today’s melancholy can be explained through boredom, unknowing, fear, and idleness. I used to have so much hope. For his call (the royal his) (royalty in my world changes on a weekly basis), and now I just hope to be let down easy from the inevitable heartbreaker who's probably tying off in the back of his car right now. Just kidding, he doesn't have a car. They never do.

It's Safer under the Bed

One day: one crippling decision. Two offers, both feasible: love or sex? It can’t be both. Not with these two. 

One offers a pleasing and sultry look in his countenance, exhibiting their beautiful graces best in hotel rooms up and down the coast. Up and down he went while claiming that I am and always will be the best lay in the bar. The best he ever had. He delivers more than orgasms…a shred of self-esteem in a hurricane of ego. I cease ruminating on this man any further and instead obsess over my fingernails. But can I, maybe, be that girl who can separate love from sex? Shackle-less and free?

The other is the one who offers poetry and authentic praise. Not about my bedroom abilities, but my smile and uncanny ability to recite Yeats at any moment…at the perfect moment, as he put it. He brings back all the dreams I had as a college freshman. The virgin who just wanted to hold hands and laugh under trees. I find this childish and boring now.

So, both offered their best, but it isn't good enough.  Why must they be separated into two different people? Is this what dating is? An eternal compromise of the least possible things you are willing to go without? It’s nauseating. Both of them are. 

He Liked My Hair Long

Today I wrote a poem about a heart-shaped stain in front of my bedroom door. It formed when I spilled the wine he brought. When he was here...in the desert...in me...with me. Just a memory ago. 

Truthfully, I’ve known many stain-causing men, but never one to imprint the floor. And never in this shape. The others left different marks—most of them gruesome images saturated in disappointment and neglect.

And so I wonder, this new stain mocking me with its stench of irony and acidic bouquets-- what is to be done now? Erase the little fucker? Impossible. At best, another must replace it. Off to find the next stain. But first, I need the wine. 

Glenrock

I’m not perfect. I fuck up. I’m allowed to make mistakes. This is horribly reasonable, but I need to write it down. Sensibilities are not the easiest for me to process. My mental breakdown (input/output) of anything is morphed.

The answers are not always apparent and they will not appear through intensive introspection. The point is to believe in the ‘analysis is paralysis’ catchphrase enough to abandon its practice. But how do I do that? Should I ultimately stop thinking altogether? Is that how people successfully feel? Or am I confused and yet, I think more about being confused that I spend actually feeling it.

I would like to actually feel with my heart (neck down) and leave the neck up for thinking. But I reverse the function of mind and heart. That’s what some guy on the other end of a suicide hotline told me. I called him from the bathroom of my college dorm 20 years ago. I wonder if he’s still around. 

Running Riot

This guy came off so strong at the beginning, that I thought I loved him. Just another unworthy obsession to distract me from what’s important. 

Nothing was lost, really, but a bit of solace and peace…maybe well-being. Players only love you when they’re playing and in addition. If this heart is gonna break, I sure as hell will make sure that I’m the one to break it. That's called self-will. I'm in control of my own misery, goddamnit. 

Always

Do rites of passage through the years mean the right to cry? 
Have I grown more human through the trying years from which I was meant to learn the most or am I just more jaded?
Have wisdom and fortitude maintained their good reputation, or do I just turn numb? Shrug off the tears, perfect the perfunctory grins and live. And live....

The dizzying effects of adulthood rekindle a similar confusion of the 12 year-old version of myself—when I wasn’t sure how to feel after all of that intrusive blood imposed itself all over me. Perhaps the half that stayed young and childish has finally matured to meet that half-woman I became decades ago. Pleased to meet me? 

Keyser Soze

It all came crashing down

I believe that in a matter of seconds, your life can turn upside-down. It’s strange that after the utterance of just a few words, the presence of a man…the constancy of his presence becomes a permanent absence. 

This control-obsessed girl will now attempt to do the unimaginable: sum it up to destiny [that I rigidly control] and the connection of things.

I choose to celebrate [:/] these just a few words that streamed from my lips…perhaps to create a sense of fortitude…most likely, however, self-righteousness will put a nasty little noxious fuck of a reflection in my mirror. Maybe fate will deliver a more accepting one. That's for the weak-minded, and given my current state, I'll take it. 

Advanced Shakespeare

To cheat and deceive oneself—to lie...and suddenly wonder about the dissension of things? Insanity. Keep doing it over and over and expecting different results. Elements that make me believe in my insanity are repeated, incessant, noxious, and maintain complacence.

Polonius advised ‘to thine own self be true’ but he didn’t say how. He expressed wisdom, but the most difficult act imaginable. To respect oneself enough to listen: perhaps the most beautiful and difficult thing in existence. 

Mitochondria

The pen with which I write has been serving these mediocre purposes for many years. As for other attempts at connecting past to present, I fail. I should know better. I’m supposed to know better after all these years and heartbreaks.

There is a boy I like so much, he makes me laugh…twice he made me cry, but blaming him for those would be a lie. I am making myself cry. Making myself crazy with expectations which contribute to my sadness or insanity.

Since I can remember liking boys I can remember feeling disappointment. And I now know that 90% of it was self-induced. So instead of some kind of Rosie the Riveter-esque ‘I don’t need him to be happy— fuck men’, it’s more accurate to say ‘fuck me’ since I’m the one breaking my own heart.

This one is busy all the time with his music career. As a consequence of dating musicians, I have come to judge this ‘career’ as more of a hobby…an incredibly emasculating and unfair perspective to have with this one.

It is for these reasons I mourn the death of our relationship, which ironically thrived in its zygote stage and slowly diminishes to unidentifiable tissue. This and other misconceptions and losses of perspective have made me lose myself. Again. In a man.

Girl Gone

I’ve totally lost myself in a man. Again. Not with a man, which would entail a symbiotic dynamic; not to a man meaning complete submission to his powers—the ones he would in this case willingly have over me. No. I have lost myself in a man. Meaning I have confusedly surrendered my whole being in this chasm of ‘him’ regardless of his knowledge or desire. It is lonely here. And cold. He has no idea I’m here. He has no idea about any of it.

Today, he’s a 35 year-old guitarist. While his age may be atypical of my usual conquests, his craft is not. But maybe, just maybe this boy who makes me laugh—the first to do so in so long—isn’t real. Maybe it was just sex. Maybe he never thinks about me, I’m scared of the pain that will inevitably be a result of his presence in my life. Where do I go?

Should Have Had My V-8

Let us always be mindful of what we wish for; let us be wary to live. And is this fair? I wished and hoped without realizing the great severity of extremes. And my wish became reality to the degree that I wanted—a very great degree…and by great I mean slanted. It’s off balance. Not right.

So, now I wish the opposite—it isn’t about all of this though. The extremes or the stupid happy-medium and scramble to categorize and intellectualize. I just need to be happy with what I have. It’s comedic, really. 

May is Stupid

To avoid wondering: where do I go when he comes?

1-don’t make yourself too easy

2-maintain aloofness

3-be a challenge and a treat 

Daggered Smiles

I’m involved with a man who brings more tension than serenity. Like a giant bomb annoyingly and loudly ticking inside of me—and not the kind that ends in ecstasy.  

This man loves my breasts and my perfect complexion. I would say that equally shallow factors bind me to him as well. He is nothing more than a man who enters, because that’s all I want him to be. 

My soul, unlike my body, is uninhabited by his person. There is no connection—no real dynamic, just the “heat of a luxurious bed”. It is this Shakespeare which contributes to his demise…this ridiculous man and that sweet Bard mean nothing to each other.

But, I wonder--must a companion know the great Scottish play or espy duplicity in the winter’s Tale to win me over? Must he master Dickinsonian metaphors and Yeatsian lyricism? Could he tell Plath from Sexton? Well, that last one might not be fair. I couldn’t even do that…which begs the question…where do I draw the line? 

Are my expectations of a romantic partner fairly defined? Is this fair? I can’t answer it, but I know that I find him incredibly boring, and would probably continue to do so had he known the Coleridge I quoted. So, I’m left with excuses…to talk myself out of the fact that I don't like him on the fundamental level of his person. But I want to fuck him anyway. Is that OK?

What's in a Number?

My friend C* married the first guy she ever fucked. And my number just reached a number too high to admit. I wasn’t really awake, still drunk and unaware of his last name. He was a break-dancer from Maryland. I didn’t really even take a shine to him, but rejection and loneliness were dying to be invited into my house that night and so I invited another so as to scare them off.

My desperate need to feel desired has doubled my number of escapades. There is only slight gratification in the act but great pleasure. Hedonism is prevalent. I’ve returned to my throne in that old castle of control and the cushions, fortunately or not, still fit my bottom perfectly. Maybe I was never meant to leave.