Living life in reality versus media

Life is not like the movies. Real life is looser, less succinct and timely. Perfect moments simply don’t come because you want them to. You’re boarding an airplane after a breakup, flight attendants preparing for departure, when you see your beloved running down the Tarmac, just in time. You receive a standing ovation as you embrace.

Did you ever notice that the characters moment of realization in the is usually followed by: “6 months later”? That 6 months is the real shit. Instant payoff is not real. Waiting for the flower to bloom when you haven’t sewn seeds yet.

There is no theme music in the background when you shop for cars

The writers of the movies are just as engrained in the habits of the way we live out our lives, our culture. What people do on TV when they’re stressed out, grab a beer. The whys of what we do when we do. The smoking cigarettes when the character needs to look like a badass.

I point these things out to be aware. Imagine life without the television. How would it be different?

The flesh colored brassiere

She awoke one morning after extreme disappointment, the kind that isn’t supposed to hurt as much as it does. She rejects the idea that her heart broke a little, and faces forward, fake strong. Showering was eventful, soap and water mixing with soul shed and going down the drain together, clockwise. She dresses, with nothing to wear that will sufficiently camouflage. Instead of a mindful choice, she puts on the dingy brassiere that’s the same color as her skin. Hideous bra under the most neutral colors she can dig out of her disheveled drawers. She’s now ready to begin to pretend for the day.

Alphabet Soup of Attributes

Words to describe me: actually the first thing that came to mind, thinking about myself

Alcoholic (slightly)
Brainy
Coquette
Dainty (anti-)
Everything
Finish nothing
Grateful
Hearse driver
Intellectual somewhat
Jam lover
Kool aid in sandwich bags
Louse catcher
Moody inside
Never asked to prom
Open-minded
Prostitute
Quintessential
Ruined forever
Sour faced
Treat for you
Underwhelmed
Vexed
Without what
Xtreme
Years go by
Zoo

~

Some days

I walk around today
Completely insecure
Totally out of fake
Who’s prettier than me
Who’s man is looking at me
Which wives give me dirty looks

I don’t want to care
Why do I care

Tell me you love yourself
Unconditionally
Tell me you love me
No matter how I look
That you won’t leave me
For a young pretty girl
There will always be someone
Prettier
Better
Smarter
So why can’t I accept this and
Love me
Some days

Live in the moment
Is what I attempt to do
Some days
it’s harder than others
To make this idea true

Fear inhabits
A place in my brain
Don’t know the name
Shaped like a mesh
Overlays the entire thing
Some days

Make these feelings go away
Please
Please
How
Make it stop now

Some days

A stabbing in the city

~

You want this?
This silken slit?
You keep telling me how
Bad bad bad you want it
I want that pleasure too

But first do this:
Cut a slit in my skull
With a curved blade
Watch it bleed
Reach in deep
the bleeding stops
Penetrate me

My mind aches
My body
My walls
break under the pressure

~

Art cred: Matthew-morbid.deviantart.com

Served up buffet style

There have been an inordinate amount of anti-rape protests, and advocacy that I have seen as of late. This particular one is in Brazil. These women are brave to withstand the enduring criticism not supporting their decided forms of protest. Some are half naked, indicating that they don’t deserve to be assaulted. Some are bending over in miniskirts. Personally, I think it brings up a good point, a woman proud of her body, isn’t necessarily seeking appreciation or viewing from others. She’s wearing what she wants to wear. What culture tells them adds value, makes them stylish. Maybe it’s comfortable, it really doesn’t matter. I would not be opposed to walking around naked all the time, as long as I didn’t get gawked at. So my skin likes the sun, sue me. 

 

“You save yourself or you remain unsaved.”  Alice Sebold

 

The advocacy also reminds me of my assaults, which I don’t like to be reminded of, but wouldn’t mind if I prevented someone else the trauma. The “asking for it” bit was the circumstance around all three separate assaults in my life. Because I was drunk, because I gave someone a hug, because I looked so good, because I was a prior partner, because it was expected.

Let’s all just take our clothes off and walk around until it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m game. 

Waste

She…wandered aimlessly for hours, weeks, even years. She was looking for self or some identifiable thing or person. She gazed upon every mirror, every shiny car, piece of chrome, glass window, seeking reflection every minute of every day…was never found. In conclusion, she was never found. What a waste.

Drive into fire for fun.

Hey.
lets go.
get your shoes
or not.

Are you ready?
what, you don’t want to go?
well I am going
so see you later.

Voyeur

***

Strobe lights-fire drill
Basketball Brackets
Cracks on the windshield
Precursor for pre-medication

I’m like a jack of most trades
Master of none
Home feels insane
Where I watch my pain from across the room

Bile is creeping up
Through the nouns and verbs
The world is heavy and disgusting
And beautifully cursed

2 hour process
To change your profile picture
Put the plastic on your head
Oh god, I just realized I’m single

Trust
Is a social cognitive theory
Chew on that
contemplate

Puppet masters:
Then fuck with us, now
Minute by minute
Hate by hate

I used to like a band called Interpol
Not so much anymore.
I swear to god
I will kick the help

Did you see the show with the brainless fucks?
Something about zombies.
Zombies watching zombies
No judgement.

I feel all of it
It muddles my love
I can’t handle it all
So I make love

***

Photo credit: http://wedevelopandwedecay.tumblr.com

Shadow Sur-reality

(I know I made that word up)

You walk through a door that’s plagued your psyche.

The people who would have scorned you before

only see you in their peripheral, paying no attention.

There is a storm waging outside. The air has come to life.

There are shadows on the walls, from the wind.

Is a shadow real,

or just our perception of what’s supposed to be there?

You ponder all of life’s mysteries.

You sit, in chaos, all night.

Voices and thunder effect you the same.

The sights are monstrous and ugly,

the bones and death and dilated pupils.

When the shadows recede

the sun comes up in the morning, it is quieted.

The trees, that made the shadows that terrorized you,

in this morning light look majestic.

Their roots dig deep they reach into the sunrise.

You get up, you walk down the middle of the sunny boulevard

and remember those shadows forever

as a new perspective settles in.

 

**

Artist Forrest Sargent