In the Bookstore

I went down to the bookstore this evening
and found myself in the poetry section.
But for every thin book of poems
there was a thick biography of the poet
and an even thicker book
by someone who’s supposed to know
explaining what the poet
is supposed to’ve said and why he didn’t.
So you don’t have to waste your time
on the best the writer could do,
the words he fought the darkness and himself for,
the unequal battle with beauty.
Instead you can read comfortably
about the worst the writer could do:
the mess he made of his life,
how he fought with his family,
cheated on his lovers, didn’t pay his debts
and not only drank too much
but all the stupid things
he ever said to the bartender
just before getting 86′d will be printed for you
and they’re just as stupid
as the things everyone says just before getting 86′d.
The books explaining the poet
are themselves inexplicable.
The students who have to read them
cheat.
I left the poetry section
thinking about burning the bookstore down.
Some of the poet’s work comes from his life, ok.
But most of the poet’s work comes
in spite of his life, in spite of everything,
even in spite of the bookstores.
So I went to the next section
and bought a murder mystery but I haven’t read it yet.
I find I don’t want to know who done it
and why;
I want to do it myself.

Julia Vinograd

"Pain or not, I would most likely walk around in a suicidal reverie the rest of my life, never actually doing anything about it. Was there a psychological term for that? Was there a disease that involved an intense desire to die, but no will to go through with it? Couldn’t talk and thoughts of suicide be considered a whole malady of their own, a special subcategory of depression in which the loss of a will to live has not quite been displaced by a determination to die?"

–Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation

"It didn’t occur to me that there was something decidedly odd in finding a box of razor blades aesthetically appealing. I wonder if a heroin addict loves the elegant simplicity of the needle, if a drinker romances the curve and shape of the bottle." 

 –Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation

In idle moments, I still slide my fingers under the sleeves of my shirt and trace the raised white nubs of scars that track my arms from years and years of cutting. How did I learn to stop cutting and collapsing, and can I somehow transmit this ability to others?

NaNoWriMo

So...my NaNoWriMo novel is not progressing as well as I would like. But with how busy the last week has been, I understand. Still, a little disappointed in myself. Though, that's been the theme for the last month or so and I don't foresee it changing one bit. Despite working three jobs, I still can hardly pay my bills; I definitely don't have enough money to pay for next semester. I'll be taking a trip to financial aid next week for sure. That and Pam's on me again to go see a doctor. I hate doctors...with a passion. Beyond that, the very last thing I want to do is have someone looking me over. That will inevitably lead to questions I do not want to answer. Well, I do want to answer them....but that brings us full-circle back to NaNoWriMo and my inability to find the time to write. So today, I will be firmly planted in front of the computer, struggling to finish my homework in time to hang out with the boyfriend. Or at least game a bit with him... Maybe I'll pull an all-nighter and work on my novel some as well. I'm always torn between wanting to tell my story to everyone and let them know exactly what is in my head or keeping it to myself. The problem is being outwardly unhappy and consistently so it pushes people away, no matter if they say they're always there to listen, there is only so much your best friends can listen to. On the other hand, to pretend that everything is fine is to poison yourself from the inside out; is to ignore who you are and lose yourself. Because sometimes people actually do feel that way. Sometimes your life feels like it is caving in on you. Sometimes people really do feel like they don't want to exist, like they just want to curl up in a ball, and go into that place between life and death. Saying "I don't want to exist" isn't saying "I want to go die". It's saying that "I wish that for the time being, I could go somewhere and not have to feel". I don't think there's anything wrong with that, and if you don't know what it's like to feel this way, then you have no place to judge anyone who does. So which is better? To have friends that think you are melodramatic, seeking attention, and pessimistic, or to drown in your own mind? I'll just have to write it out and decide later if anyone will read it. 


"I'm not saying that everything is survivable, just everything except that last thing is."  
    John Green


“It’s hard for everyone. It always seems like it’s hardest for you, but your success and your happiness has much more to do with understanding other people around you than it does with understanding yourself. And, guess what, the homecoming queen probably has crippling phobias too. It sounds cliche, but you have to think about everyone like they’re people, and suddenly you realize that 90% of teenagers have moments where they want to cut themselves, pull out their hair, punch their best friend and sit crying in the shower. And EVERYONE was once a teenager…that goes for your teachers, parents, rock idols, and grand parents…and those people all made it through.”

Hank Green

TFioS

"There will come a time when all of us are dead, all of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything; there will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is billions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever. There was time before organisms experienced consciousness and there will be time after. And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. God knows that’s what everyone else does."

-Hazel Grace Lancaster

“Every day our bodies separate,


exploded torn and dazed.

Not understanding what we celebrate

we grope through languages and hesitate

and touch each other, speechless and amazed;

and every day our bodies separate

us farther from our planned, deliberate
ironic lives. I am afraid, disphased,

not understanding what we celebrate

when our fused limbs and lips communicate
the unlettered power we have raised.

Every day our bodies’ separate

routines are harder to perpetuate.
In wordless darkness we learn wordless praise,

not understanding what we celebrate;

wake to ourselves, exhausted, in the late

morning as the wind tears off the haze,

not understanding how we celebrate

our bodies. Every day we separate.

”

—	“Villanelle for D.G.B.” - Marilyn Hacker