I have said it a few times. I’ve done this, as John said, before.
I don’t know if I really mean that.
Instead of I give up. I mean
I don’t care what time it is.
I don’t know where to throw myself.
Want to write about rejection, and failure. Want to talk about exclusion, mass psychological violence. Writing a song, practicing my poem about how queer adults bully each other instead of eating our vegetables.
We're finally free, we think.
Marriage and Medicine let us stay up all night. We don't have to dream anymore.
No it's not that I can't tell time, or that I'm lost or unhooked. I haven't given up I've given my self over to the galleys. I'm waiting on my edits. I thought I had submitted myself properly. I spaced myself.
I'm actually fucking livid. I forgot how angry I am. I keep forgetting -- ban subjunctives.
I don't know why I can't be part of the world. Why can't I be someone you know. I want to be an artist. I want to read the stories I've been writing and I want to perform the songs I've been writing and I want to put together evenings of poetry and performance and video.
And I've done this in the past and people have (I think) gotten something out of it.
But it seems like I've been blackballed or something. I know I sound paranoid, but it feels as though no one wants me at the party. Everyone thinks I belong somewhere else.
So I took a few years off. I went on meds, then off of meds, because I wanted to die really bad. I guess some days I still do.
But what I really want is to feel like we're not living in a vacuum. It's galling to me to keep hearing this feedback: you have your own thing.
I don't have my own thing. I want people to be part of my thing. I don't know what I did to upset everyone but I have an idea and I think the idea is I literally didn't suck enough of the dicks that i was probably supposed to.
And then now today the people we think are our friends want us to be more sensitive. Want us to stop piling on. Why can't we let some people succeed? Why do we have to tear each other down? They want us to feel bad for holding them accountable. They want us to hold our tongues. They want us to consider how it might feel to be shunned, bullied. How might it feel for your world to turn on you. How much would it hurt if the entire scene you had spent years cultivating and supporting all of a sudden wanted nothing to do with you?
Well I know how that feels. It feels bad. But it doesn't feel as bad as trying to get help and no one believing you.
I don't know how to say this but I think we're putting ourselves in the position of defending bullies if they're cool or successful or white enough.
"Oh yes, they're awful they are mean they attack you and they're out to get you but they're so funny. They are gonna be on TV."
Who gets to be invincible?
Suppose I really was desperate.
Suppose I wanted to get my life back together. Suppose I would actually pay money to get to perform for people. To get to read my stories. Would anyone let me? I know the desperation is cloying and off-putting. The fact that I want it, that I need it, doesn't seem to matter.
They keep telling me I'm barking up the wrong tree and that I should get out of the forest. And it's hard not to hear this as my community, or my imagined community, telling me they don't want me to be part of it.
I keep asking and asking and asking for help in getting through this patch, finding a way to be in the world with you. And you keep telling me to leave and it feels like maybe I'm not the one that came up with the idea of suicide. That maybe the world wants me to kill myself. And when I keep hearing the feedback of "you're not really the type of artist we like to support" or "you're wrong for this" what I am hearing is "...and kill yourself." Maybe that's not how it's intended but I think you can forgive me.
How would I act, how differently would I present myself if it did mean something to me. Why am I so bad at making a case for myself? Is it because I am unconfident? Or is it because I really am confident but there's nothing to make a case for? That in fact I am empty, fallow, etc.
This is what I cannot resolve. This is what I have been struggling with. Should I even bother continuing? I feel like I am on the side of the road unsure of which wilderness, which death to court. No one wants to help. And I keep asking.
So, two nice things
1) After hearing how sad I was the other night, my amazing boyfriend surprised me with tickets to see Elza Soares tonight.
"I lived in New York in the 80s — in Brooklyn and also on 43rd Street. I have wonderful memories — my greatest friend in New York was Eartha Kitt and we had a lot of fun together. I moved to New York when I lost my son and wanted to escape the pain a mother feels from losing a child. New York was the city that took me in its arms. It's been over 25 years since I've visited, but I think it will be a happy reunion."2) The Ti plant I've had in my bedroom for at least a decade just started, for the first time, to blossom.
Yesterday morning when I woke up with a broken heart.
Yesterday afternoon.
I can't wait to see what the flowers look like.