So the Grolsch bottle pops open and you start and then a half second later you think pussy. Not so good when you're thinking it about yourself.
Except you know you're not - a pussy that is. But you've become innoculated. Innoculated to the beating world around you. What you - and others - have let near you is innoccuous. You keep it innocuous in case you get beaten.
What would it mean to try to do something then fail? Not come close and be worthy of sympathies when you just shoot past along with the other folds of mediocrity wrapping us all up. But really fuck it up. And I don't mean screw up, cos that's obviously different. I mean fuck it up because you put yourself on the line.
On the line. What does that mean? It triggers the line of a guillotine blade. Or the Guantanamo border. or the edge of a cliff. Where the difference between fucking doing it and really fucking it up is immense, but the distance is small. Cos by that point - point on a line? point of two lines intersecting, a cliff meets a gullotine? - you're talking about the tiny toss-ups of the universe, the extra breaths that bring you the oxygen you need to make that final stretch or which cost you the split second's loss of focus that throws you to the ground, in front of the lions, where you've just miraculously transformed into a sirloin steak waiting to be growled up in not a ceremonious fashion.
I digress. I'm losing my focus.
Anger.
Anger.
ANGER.
That's what drove me to write now. Write when I NEVER write, despite my pretentions to do it. Like it's been for years since lying in bed as a kid thinking of the amazing lego models I'd make (never did; never could; only my tortured brother could), I've always been scared what came out would be so much shitter than the amazing thoughts in my head. That the phrases would not be sublimely beautiful the way they are inside me - poignant too.
Scared. That's a good word for me. And I mostly forget I am, until some intense experience reminds me I'm alive and life is incredible -- in a kind of catch-it-while-you-can way, not a kind of sit-back-and-discuss/admire way.
This time it was going to New Orleans (N'Awwlins). A lot like Aceh. Dead people, destroyed homes, enormity and personal tragedy in one. And barely any action -- a society stymied by lack of action from those that have and the despair and lack of power of those that haven't. Sort it out! I wanted to scream. How can you leave schools and hospitals closed? How can you leave people without homes? What would it mean to have been carted across the country first off, then still not to have anything proper to come back to nearly two years later?
I want to scream and shout. But I don't. That would upset people. That would make them look away, feel uncomfortable, not say lovely things about me when I'm gone. And second only to the excruciating -- yes, excruciating, how funny! how silly were it not true! -- discomfort I feel when a conversation isn't completely perfect, is all the ruminating afterwards about what they thought and are now thinking of me.
Lots of good sides, you might say (if you could talk but ha ha I'm the only one with keys on the keyboard here). Caring about other people's feelings, wanting to be a good conversationalist, the life and soul above all else. But what if it means you have a safety shutoff valve that stops you from going a bit mad when that would be a really good thing? Blowing off some steam? Going a bit crazy without needing approval to do so? (oh yes, sad to say that's the case)
So I'm angry? about leaving America but not pushing the boundaries, not playing the devil when I could have. Or maybe could have but played it nicely. Ashley. Or Mandy S. Fucking either, gloriously and for mutual bliss, would have been sublime. Would be sublime. And either would have been easy. But I met another girl first -- a girl I care about too, a nice girl, and a girl with a bit of life in her (enough? I don't know; she says she's the 'I get tired' type). It's a good thing that I care about her (though, living in different countries, it's crazy to think anything would come of it -- isn't it?). I don't know if it's the real thing or if it isn't.
But here's the thing, the funny thing. The thing that'll shock you. Or maybe you'll just nod. We're not properly together, whatever properly means, but I think you know well enough what it means. This is the thing: *she* wouldn't know if I did anything; but I'll know that I didn't. I'll know that I didn't confirm that my fragile existence is still the case, even though she won't know either way. I'll have to live with not grabbing life with both knowing hands while I could've.
You may say I would also know if I *had* done it, that I'd have to live with that too, the guilt. And that's true. But which would be better? which would be worse?
Pop.
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