"all my life i have loved travelling at night, with companions, each of us discussing and sharing the known and familiar behavior of the other.  its like a villanelle, this inclination of going back to events in our past, the way the villanelle's form refuses to move forward in linear development, circling instead at those familiar moments of emotion.  only the rereading counts, nabokov said.  so the strange form of that belfry, turning onto itself again and again, felt familiar to me.  for we live with those retrievals from childhood that coalesce and echo throughout our lives, the way shattered pieces of glass in a kaleidoscope reappear in new forms and are songlike in their refrains and rhymes, making up a single monologue. we live permanently in the recurrence of our own stories, whatever story we tell.

there was now not a single lit streetlamp in the villages we passed, just our headlights veering and sweeping along the two-lane roads.  we were alone in the world, in nameless and unseen country.  i love such journeying at night.  you have most of your life strapped to your back.  music on the radio comes faint and intermittent.  you are wordless at last.  your friends hand on your knee to make sure you are not drifting away.  the black hedges coax you on"

-divisadero

(a longer version, as per the request of my beauties.)

remember who you are.
(i know you're surrounded by people who have nothing, who have nothing to give.)
that feeling of loneliness, that isolation, had become too much to bear. i was trying to remain humble, by not placing myself above my friends, but i couldn't shake that feeling, i didn't trust any of their opinions more than my own, not one; and faced with a situation where i desperately needed an outsiders point of view, i was left with no choice other than to close my eyes and brace myself.
and i faltered.

after he left, i was empty and hollow, lost and overwhelmed to a point i had forgotten existed, i needed someone, anyone, and as i stood there in my barren family room.. i couldn't stay, he had found me here. he had found me here. 
i called my mom in tears
one by one my room became dismantled. every last piece. all my relics. crying. i had built this for him and now he'd found me, here. 
"can you imagine the crisis of faith" i whisper to julia and amy, as the wind picks up outside "that was my one big moment, my casting off the chains of dependancy and setting off into the unknown and i've worked so hard this past year, following my own advice and convincing myself that i was growing, that i was changing, that i was on some sort of path. and then. to wake up one morning and realize, you're right back in the same old hell." i shudder, choking feelings closing in around me. the same, old hell. "what can that even mean," i'm shaking "did i do something wrong? did i miss a step? was my huge, life affirming action completely and horrible misguided?" my voice trails off, my eyes, lost in the distance.

i'm going home. i had no idea, if this was right, i had no idea, if anything was right, at this point, but i began to take comfort in the sight of my pile of boxes and suitcases accumulating up in the hall, tucking each piece of myself within whatever bags, boxes, i can discover.
you question the choice you've made
see the gray in your hair, angel. your beauty can't be covered by insecurities. i hope the same truth would still hold true for me. because i've drowned in mine.

"we know whats going to happen," julia smiles, all limbs lounged in my porch chair "its going to be destructive, and its going to be bad. this is so heavy. i'm so sorry. i wish, i wish i could just lock your beautiful little self away somewhere until this passes..."
i sigh, "i know. in a month, though, i'm driving across the country. maybe its better, if i go with nothing."

dear life,
i know sometimes you and i get into little tiffs and i curse your name and doubt in everything that you've ever shown me. sometimes i forget that there exists, within your illimitable beauty, moments which are so open ended, where even the choices themselves aren't clearly defined and that in these moments, clarity, too can be found. 
picture, a plane, taking off. or something more beautiful than a plane, because i can't stand them, really, planes, screw metaphors lets picture a person, wrapped in the glistening flow of existence and the build up the build up the build up picking up speed picking up speed "its all in motion now" i hush to chelsea on the last day, its all in motion now and then that, moment, right at lift off.
HOW DO I STEER THIS FUCKING THING AND GODDAMNIT WHERES THE GROUND WHERES THE GROUND WHERES THE GROUND i'm so disoriented, theres no path, here, where the fuck am i going where the fuck am i 
i go through all this, before you wake up, so i can feel happier to be safe again with you

the curtain rises, act three. a portal, into a month in the middle of nowhere. a place where we're all mutants. all eviscerated, wounded, forced to live with these wicked scars, these absurdities. as the three of us wrap ourselves in warm, may evening harmony, its as if that scar comes to the surface, i can feel it, aching and raw, a scarlet letter if you will, glowing over my heart, my left shoulder. i feel safe, here, letting it show.

"she has all these personalities in her that clash," julia says, speaking of her mom "she's glamorous and flashy and then at the same time she's this warm, eccentric earth mother and then at the same time she's perched upright in her office thats so put together and beautiful you just want to sit in there and take everything in..."
something sparks in my brain "she keeps them all separate. thats how she keeps them from clashing." i'm grinning "i'm going to have to try that.. part of my problem comes in when i try to assimilate and all my selves get territorial and fight and clash they just all run together and i can't make heads or tails of it. i just need to keep them all separate..."
a place where everyone is as giving, as caring, as nuanced and receptive as i am, julia is pulling a huge bag of weed from her bag "please please smoke as much as you want" and thats the kicker, you can tell she means it, charity to me is nothing when its bequeathed with hesitance, a restriction, but shes beaming and handing everything over "i just, when i get high i love to share it with everyone, i want everyone to get high.."

a place where, once again, to reveal your inner glow is commonplace. where it feels like they're a part of it, and being a part of it, they can help you to isolate your hangups, your deceptions, your truths. where your little sister curls up on your lap, ("god i'm so jealous i wish i had a relationship like that.. theres two of them.. these two little perfect creatures."), and you can lean your tired head on her shoulder, inhaling deeply from your bong and watching the smoke trail off, into the night air. 
a place where your room smells like incense and you fall asleep with ease.

there on the street, are so many possibilities to not be alone.
home.

summertime.. and the livin's easy

everything is right, again. fucking portals, man, they always disorient me.
this could be called invisible.. cause there isn't something for us to hold...

call it women's intuition, but i think i'm onto something here.

(last night, 12:09 am

here, at last i can sit down to write. 
its dark in my family room, and i'm still slightly high, unbounded and trembling-
the magic, of my porch, of amy and julia..
they could feel, the nuances of my sorrow.
i'm flooded and flying down the highway "you must have been a little traveling gypsy" amy giggles, and i am, i don't even remember the act of packing but all my things, my life, is stowed away within my jetta, everything that matters and i'm moving i'm moving i'm moving. at times i cry for stretches of highway, squinting through tears to see the road i'm tired and weak i can't do this on my own i can't do this on my own i keep making wrong decisions and above all this, the one, single thought, i just have to make it through this drive. once i make it home, everything will be fine.

and then there were three of us, lounging, gracefully on my porch chairs, smoking and talking for, how many hours must it have been, three i would imagine, and i could have stayed for hours more.
its julia's face, the low drawl of her voice.
amy's radiant smile, 
and the storm coming in, the wind picking up, gathering so much strength and pure, unclouded love.. i tremble in it, allowing more and more of myself to show through.
"thank you," i whisper, as we leave, 
"you really, really, have helped me, tonight. thank you, for being a part of it."  )

sometimes, things that seem the most destructive are only necessary to provide the impetus to propel you to farther heights.

i've tumbled into a month in the middle of nowhere, and found something purely spectacular.

the curtain rises, act three.

on alleviating greed, and loving the things i'm blessed with. in the mirror, i saw you, as the autumn fell, until i made my turn i thought oh well, i thought well this could be the last time i see, your beautiful hands, your frozen hands, your trembling hands that could not hold on, to any heart thats warm, or any lie thats cold, your hands are paper burning in the sun. who is she, this girl? you see her in the library, elegant even in mismatched dirty pajamas, laughing with a friend of hers as she loudly and noisily rearranges the metal desk, calling "sorry everyone" as she shimmies with its weight along the tile floor, her pile of books and papers and multicolored pens tumbling everywhere and as she finally settles into comfort and turns up her headphones, you're not really surprised that you can hear it all the way across the library, the bopping beat of house music tapping against your brain in time with the tapping of her feet. (it seemed unlikely that anything could hold much longer) you think she'd be outgoing, for she's so secure, so solid in herself, but you're surprised to find that shes fairly quiet, especially in group settings, preferring to watch the action from behind liquid blue eyes and you cant help but wondering what shes thinking what shes seeing how shes perceiving things and when her voice slips out, laced with sarcasm you realize it, too, doesnt reveal anything about her ever elusive thoughts, every word is so noncomittal, so multi interpreted, is she kidding? is she teasing? is there seriousness, hidden in that lilt? sometimes you think you see her, really see her. if you want to find her, that is, her most revealing moments are late nights, draped in some form of pajama, packing bowls. make sure to keep the group small, or else you'll be witness to nothing other than witty one liners and hilarious anecdotes involving one or more of the wildly amusing people with whom she surrounds herself and you're of the sneaking suspicion that thats the main reason she keeps them around, they don't seem to provide any sort of intrinsic company or security other than to divert her mind from the inherent dissatisfaction she finds hidden behind every, glimmering moment. but when the group is small, preferably just the two of you, sometimes three is alright, you'll see something in her eyes. it'll happen only briefly. but sometimes, just sometimes, the guard in her voice will drop, the smirk on her face erased. in these moments, you see the face of a lost, lonely dreamer, asking you gently, is this right? and please, someone tell me, where are we?

this afternoon, walking back to my car after slipping my final paper under my professors office door, i listened to the bell chiming on old main, wondering just how many times in four years i'd heard that sound, how many moments of my life were saturated with its charm.

not but two hours ago, you would have found me in bed.  the beauty in those moments isinarticulatable.  (i know thats not a word, i dont know the appropriate one, and in all my philosophy papers i replaced it with "unable to be articulated, but you know what, here, in my blog, i'm using the damn word).  after my second bowl, i lay, buried in my pillows and blankets, headphones pressed to my ears, fresh air wafting into my cocoon through my open window, wracked with sobs, undone.  i threw myself wholeheartedly into every emotion surrounding every outcome and structure of the alex situation, tracing out each single nuance, an endeavor i've hidden from since sophomore year of high school, when he was still just that quirky kid who sat next to me in photography class.  muffling my face with a tear stained pillow, i apologized to my empty bedroom for destroying something so precious, so rare, so brilliant, cried for all this time spent without the truest companion i've ever known, ached at allowing myself a full remembrance of his texture, his hands, his skin, and just how his mere physical presence was always, without fail, enough to ease each and every one of my anxieties.  

and most importantly, i let my being shatter, thinking of the horrifying grip of addiction with which he is dealing, at this very moment.  

and when i finally lifted my head, i found clarity.  shaky, dim clarity, but clarity nonetheless.

when he calls me later, i know exactly, what i'm going to say to him.

"come to penn state.  today, tomorrow.  stay as long as you like.  yes, i think its a good idea.  i too, have missed you."

this, this is not about romance.

this is about, when you love someone, loving them, without expecting anything in return.  this is about removing your ego from the situation - of course, just as my mom advised - and letting things exist in their natural form, of seeing the other in the others terms.  i knew, this forced four day adderall consumption was necessary in order to generate the most brilliant self assurance and strength i'd yet experienced, but it was still too early to know for what.

for seeing past the bullshit, and the lies, and the misplaced insecurities, and the immaturirty.  for forgiving ourselves for being too young to deal adequately with such an intense relationship.   for approaching this situation with no intentions, no agendas, none of

 my needs, dangling, precariously from my sleeve.  for, in short,  being alexs friend.

the standard modifiers arent, alas illuminating

"steadfast" "warm" and "Feeling"

dont indicate the strength we need in dealing

with someone else's longing and regrets.

true friendship is never serene,

misunderstanding, valgaries of spleen

all the minutiae of despair

it is in spite of these one comes to share

experience, and sharing it, confirms

the other in the others terms

and not ones own (consult, as well as restriction

Patience, and Love).

3:20:49 PM silvrbullet731: yeah... well if we/ i come it's gonna be thursday afternoon until saturday afternoon

3:21:00 PM silvrbullet731: im pretty sure im comin jamie 

3:21:13 PM lacework: i'm pretty sure i'm pretty damn excited about it

3:21:13 PM silvrbullet731: so plan on it

3:21:18 PM silvrbullet731: :-)

3:21:19 PM lacework: :)

3:21:28 PM silvrbullet731: i can't wait to give you a hug

3:21:49 PM lacework: when i said i'd been thinking about seeing you, i was really just thinking abotu that hug

3:21:51 PM silvrbullet731: i think once we get that hug out we'll be alright

3:22:01 PM lacework: i couldnt have said it better myself

3:22:12 PM silvrbullet731: yeah. that initial hug is gonna be so great. 

3:22:17 PM silvrbullet731: :-)

3:22:22 PM silvrbullet731: sorry it's been a while since ive seen you

3:22:26 PM silvrbullet731: i feel good about this

on death, or, day 3 of 4

i know its just the adderall, or i think its just the adderall, or maybe its a combination, but i feel completely, totally numb right now.  i had never realized, that when you put your mind to it, school work can function as an incredible distraction during moments of major life crises.

maybe i'm being slightly melodramatic.

these moments are deeper and darker than ive experienced in a long time.

i'm lying in my bed at 130 in the morning with the window open, watching the moon..

cut too, ive retreated to the end of my bed, curled up in a ball, sobbing with fear, with terror as full realization of the extent of alex's intent on self destruction and the drug addiction that lead him there is seizing my whole body, tears long since dormant spilling down my cheeks and i cant stop trembling , i'd been trembling all night and now i'm aware of what it was foreshadowing, aware of just what was necessitating the reserves of inner strength i'd been storing up all day,

"sorry i cant explain now but i love you thanks for beingby there for me.  i will always remember that you were willing to help me."

even now, just typing it out, brings a tightness to my chest, warm tears welling up within my eyes caught in eternal stare.

upon waking this morning, i was in a daze. sobbing at my kitchen table, for what felt like hours, i finally dragged myself to yasis, showered (we're still without hot water at my house, of course) and then, adderall in tow, dissolved into the confines of the library, writing writing writing writing writing.

now, my kitchen table.

self inventory.

in the past three days i've eaten, one bowl of rice.  two pieces of bread.  a handful of pretzels.  a mug of microwaved edamamae.

smoked three packs of cigarettes.

all of my muscles ache.

my eyes are still red, from prolonged crying, cigarette smoke, and lack of sleep.

somewhere, wind chimes are sounding.

i'm not sure where my emotions are.  all i can feel, right now, is nausea.

yasi tells me i can't let my guilt over my relationship with alex trap me into feeling like i have to save him from himself.  that pressure was part of what drove me to leave him, after all.  but how do you sit back and watch the boy you've known since you were 15, made love to and cried to and held hands with and experienced the pangs of growing up with,  one of the most important influences on the girl you are today, tear himself to pieces, one day at a time.

my mom tells me to remove myself from this situation emotionally, to call his parents, to tell them the extent of the situation, so they can step in, get him help.

i falter, "i want to talk to him, first."

"why?"  she replies angrily "he's a drug addict, jamie.  a legitimate drug addict.  do you want to hear his lies?"

i do.  does that make me selfish?  

god i don't even want to think about this anymore goddamnit alex why can't you just grow up, take responsiblity for yourself for once if anything fucking happens to you, if you hurt yourself, or kill yourself, or get killed, or od.. i really just don't know, what i'll do.

i will be wrecked, i think,  for a long, long time.

maybe the burning in my eyes really in fact is from tears.

school work is a good distraction.  school work is a good distraction.  school work is a good distraction.

there is something gripping about all of them, as if a solitary person strews flowers upon his road of pain, deluding himself that it is a road of happiness.  they are like fresh and broken roses upon which he wishes to tread, while at the same time he is already braiding a crown of thorns for his head.  nietzsches thoughts sounds like a prelude to the shattering drama of his highest ascendance and his downfall.  his philosophy does not completely life a curtain in the drama, but its folds show flower threads and, half hidden, the large sad words,

incipit tragoedia.

its morning again and i'm watching wayne pounce leaves outside the kitchen window, the tiny bell on his collar ringing with every jump.

i called billy yesterday evening in a manic, terrified craze last night, praying he'd be able to help me find adderall, because, lets face it, as it was nearing 630 and I still had made zero progress on any of my papers, i was beginning to fall into an existential crisis about the intrinsic worth of my own person, and was illuminated more by the sight of his familiar silhouette leaping over the railing of my side porch than i expected, and even more excited to learn that he, too, will be returning to state college next fall.

"yes!"  he smiles, inhaling from the half of a cigarette he has left "maybe then i can finally realize my life long dream of dating you."

i laugh, lingering in a hand hold in parting.

spent the rest of my evening absorbed in words, with a short smoke break with conyers to break up the monotony, and when i got home, i proceeded to stay up til 4 in the morning, purely absorbed in "if on a winters night a traveler," which, i daresay, has become my favorite novel, of all time.  there are so many things i can, and will, quote from its magical pages, but to start, what follows, albeit long, is the most perfect description of myself i have ever encountered.  am i truly as timeless as characters from literature?  or was this written for me?

thats the trick about books, they could very well be.  written for you.  

"the kitchen is the part of the house that can tell the most things about you:  whether or cook or not (one would say yes, if not every day, at least fairly regularly) whether only for yourself or also for others (often only for yourself, but with care, as if you were cooking also for others; and sometimes also for others, but nonchalantly, as if you were cooking for yourself) [...] observing your kitchen, therefore, can create a picture of you as an extroverted, clearsighted woman, sensual and methodical, you make your practical sense serve your imagination.  could a man fall in love with you, just seeing your kitchen? [...]

There are countless things that you accumulate around you:  fans, postcards, perfume bottles, necklaces hung on the walls.  But on closer examination every object proves special, somehow unexpected.  Your relationship with objects is selective, personal, only the things you feel become yours:  it is a relationship with the physicality of things, not with an intellectual idea that takes the place of seeing them or touching them.  And once they are attached to you, marked by your possession, the objects no longer seem to be there by chance, they assume meaning as elements of a discourse, like a memory composed of signals and emblems.  Are you possessive?  Perhaps there is not yet enough evidence to tell:  for the present it can be said that you are possessive toward yourself, and that you are attached to the signs in which you identify something of yourself, fearing to be lost without them.[...]

The arrangement of the furniture and the objects on it is never symmetrical, either.  the order you seek to attain (the space at your disposal is limited, but you show a certain care in exploiting it, to make it seem more extensive) is not the superimposition of a scheme, but the achievement of a harmony among the things that are there.

In short, are you tidy or untidy?  Your house does not answer peremptory questions with a yes or a no.  You have an idea of order to be sure, even a demanding one, but in practice no methodical application corresponds to it.  Obviously your interest in the home is intermittent, it follows the difficulty of your days, the ups and downs of your moods.

Are you depressive or euphoric?  The house, in its wisdom, seems to have taken advantage of your moments of euphoria to prepare itself to shelter you in your moments of depression. [...]

lets have a look at the books.  the first thing noticed, at least on looking at those you have most prominent, is that the function of books for you is immediate reading; they are not instruments of study or reference or components of a library arranged according to some order.  Perhaps, on occasion you have tried to give a semblance of order to your shelves, but every attempt at classification was rapidly foiled by heterogenous acquisitions.  The chief reason for the juxtaposition of volumes, besides the dimensions of the tallest of the shortest, remains chronological, as they arrived here, one after the other; anyway, you can always put your hand on any one, also because they are not too numerous (you must have left other bookshelves in other houses, in other phases of your existence)[...]perhaps for you each book becomes identified with your reading of it at a given moment, once and for all.

Unlike the provisions in the kitchen, here it is the living part, for immediate consumption, that tells most about you.  Numerous volumes are scattered, some left open, others with makeshift bookmarks or corners of the pages folded down.  Obviously you have the habit of reading several books at the same time, you choose different things to read for different hours of the day, the various corners of your house, cramped as it is, there are books meant for the bedside table, those that find their place by the armchair, in the kitchen, in the bathroom.

It could be an important feature to be added to your portrait; your mind has interior walls that allow you to partition different times in which to stop or flow, to concentrate alternately on parallel channels.  Is this enough to say you would actually like to live several lives simultaneously?  Or that you actually do live them?  That you separate your life with one person or in one environment from your life with others, elsewhere?  That in every experience you take for granted a dissatisfaction that can be redeemed only in the sum of all dissatisfactions?"

this is where i'm beginning.  i feel this weekend will be a turning point for me.  

and so begins, day two, of chain smoking manic adderall induced philosophically rambling frenzy state.

sigh.