Diary Entry September 22 2013

I am immobile. Grim. My thoughts boil, dissipate, scald on inquiry. I can not adjust my moods to the indulgence of either obligation or whim. So I stoop, incongruous with a sustainable architecture. Contradictions define me. I am exhausted and vehemently opposed to the clock’s covetous hands withdrawing my youthful diversions. My habits offend me and yet I am fondly and inconsolably dedicated to their exploitation. The most significant discovery I have made in the past few months is that I no longer want to be unhappy. I understand unhappiness. The alternative remains incomprehensible. My mouth is a monument, grief-stricken but no longer frequented by superstition. It dips well below the horizon. I frown mostly and I’ve found that the face really does assume the angles most held.

*

My hair has started to turn grey. Not grey precisely. The hairs are hysterically white. My grandmother had a head full of freshly laid snow, immaculate and cohesive. I am 32, a red head it could be worse but I still find myself cringing whenever I see one of those albino imposters sprouting from my autumnal mane. Even if you approach life slowly, delicately it still passes by in an instant. I am not aging well, despite my good intentions, genetics don’t give a shit about my intentions.

*

I find that I cry less. That I spend less time engaged in preparations for war. I spend less time generating ulterior motives from happenstance. Some days inexplicably I even forget to hate myself. I realize that soon I will have to articulate my goals to a stranger. My goals have always been survival oriented. Get out of bed, keep breathing, feed, clothing optional/shower mandatory. My existence has been about maintaining a state of “not dead”. I want more than “not dead” but I am not sure how much more. I don’t think I need much.

*

I am not ready for real life friends. I just want to be able to go to the grocery without the comfort of my automatisms. For God sake stop talking to yourself in public it generates unwanted conversation. Contrary to popular belief talking to yourself while wildly flapping your hands does not discourage people from socializing. If anything it seems to encourage them.

*

As for jobs. I am at my very core an Anarchistic. I could not, would not, should not work in an office. I cannot drive or operate machinery and I cannot be responsible for a herd of living beings (except maybe plants). Being a surgeon is completely out of the question. I probably can’t watch a store because of the absence seizures. Whenever I think of working I think of all that I can’t do I am not sure if I am being pessimistic or realistic circumstances considered.

*

My seizures are very frequent. Speaking of which my seizures have actually gotten worse since the pneumonia. My pupils are asymmetrical more often than not these days. I am in a chronic mental stupor. Please don’t let this be a permanent change.  Is it even possible to work outside of home at my own pace? My pace being on par with your typical earth-dwelling mollusk. I couldn’t get any slower if I stood still and waited for the task to spontaneously complete itself.

*

My idea is to get a physically demanding job, something that would allow me to skip my daily exercise and that would be mechanical and repetitious (memory issues make complicated tasks impossible at the moment). Grave digging for example. Unfortunately I believe they use machines to dig graves which I cannot legally operate. I only want to work part-time in the mornings when I am at my sharpest. I want an apartment/house suitable for a three person family. Not a big space mind you as I have to be capable of maintaining the space in a habitable fashion. I want my bedroom door to close and lock! I want to have vocal sex! I want to be less self-conscious. I want to write poetry books and live with purpose. I want a functional brain, which might be the one thing I can’t have. I want the independence that comes from learning. I want to see a memory specialist desperately.

*

Today’s something different is letting you read my diary. I have no idea how to write a diary and so I can never figure out if I should pretend I am talking to an audience or if I should talk to myself. Diaries confuse me and to be honest I rarely write in mine which is probably some kind of criminal offense given that I am a writer.  I mostly pretend I am talking to someone else and so I weirdly explain things about myself that are obvious and that I already know. Diaries really confuse me and I think they make me sound insane lol

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Prompt 22 Try Something Different

This weeks prompt is about stepping out of your comfort zone/niche. That’s right I want you to try something new, challenging, and/or a little different =)

Examples

1. Write a play, poem, skit, song, story (I have never written a play or skit for me that would be different)

2. Try a poetry form that you’ve never tried or have very little experience with (for my entry I did a sonnet which is a form I have almost no experience with and find very challenging besides!)

3. Write something outside of your genre or tackle a new or difficult subject

4. Do a voice recording of a poem, story, song etc.

5. Submit a photograph or artwork with your submission that you have created (many of us rely on google for our images)

6. If an artist or photographer you could try a different technique, a different subject, a different perspective (if you take pictures of flowers try taking a picture of machinery, buildings, animals, people etc), you could also attempt a daring self portrait

7. Try something new in real life like acupuncture, meditation, ice-skating, making Cinnamon rolls etc. and write about and/or photograph the experience

8. Go to the grocery store and choose an exotic fruit! Go to a restaurant and try a foreign dish! Then share the experience =)

These are just some suggestions feel free to challenge yourself in whatever way you like! If you are really ambitious try something new everyday this week it does not have to be a big event as I mentioned it can be as simple as buying a box of gourmet chocolates and writing about it.

2 Sonnets (Mistress of Carrion and Crept)

Mistress of Carrion

Stygian heart reborn with the dawn

A waif no word or deed could snare

Moonlit limbs in blankets withdrawn

A murder of ravens nodding in prayer

Mistress of carrion lovely even in death

I beseech thee another hour, another day

Lungs screeching in defiance of breath

A man of mercy would not bid you stay

But you are crueler, more indelible than I

For without you heaven and Creator depart

My humanity will on your ascension die

For without the muse there exists no art

Severance offers neither freedom nor cure

For what reason should I alone endure?

Crept

There is no wound for which your darling lips have abstained

No passage within that I might as sanctuary claim forbidden

One by one you unravel my fears as if I were an exile chained

Beneath your omnivorous gaze no mystery remains hidden

Boundless as a wayfarer’s sky, these flaws an unsavory guide

What nightmares this troubled mind has imbibed despite protest

That you should in possession, look upon me with such pride

Tis not for me to question the fortune of which I’ve been blessed

Abandoned by blood I had no savior upon which to hope

Deplorable wretch that I was I surrendered ungratefully to sin

I wanted only for a black-veiled butcher to fasten his rope

Around my neck that I might upon my final breath grin

Knowing that I had lived if not well, at least willfully

But into my unconscious heart you crept ever so skillfully

Abject

1

There exists

No greater fear

Then vacancy

What if

My ineptitude

Stemmed not

From inexperience

But from a lack

Of content?

*

You told me once

That my vocabulary

Was too big

To justify

That all love

Was a form of

Self-indulgence

*

Architecture

Without

A resident heart

Affectation

Without

Affection

What right

Did I have

To speak

Of happiness

When I knew

So little of her

What right

Did I have

To speak

Of moments

Not yet defiled

By a captious brain

When they stood

So few and far

Between

*

That was the day

I put aside my pen

The day

That I decided

Unequivocally

That I was nothing

I lacked

The confidence

To redeem myself

So I hid

2

I drank of hemlock

And in agony

My soul from eyes

Withdrew

Hence forth

I reside internal

Hence forth

A Judas

To my muse

*

I was inspired to write this after speaking to Bianca. Many many years ago before I had a blog when my poems were selectively and seldomly shared I received a critique that would stop me from writing for years. I had a friend I shared my poetry with regularly and for many years he was a great supporter of my work. Then one day I decided to write something quite different from my usual fare. I was quite excited about it because I felt that the only way for me to grow was to push myself out of my comfort zone and take on new challenges. He HATED the poem. His criticism went from the poem, to my worth as a human being. For several hours he questioned the very foundation of my beliefs, he said I was a phony. He did not like that I used vocabulary he was not familiar with and he felt that the poem was cliched and lacked emotional depth which led him to the conclusion that if I wrote it I was equally superficial. He’d read countless poems of mine before and had never criticized them for being superficial so I am not sure what led him to believe that in one day I had transformed into another person but that is precisely what he did believe. He truly believed I was a traitor. A person of depth was never happy and never could be happy that was the burden of genius madness and misery. I had fallen. The critique really hurt me because not only did our friendship take a blow from which it never recovered (he does not read any of my poems now and rarely talks to me) but it hit on my biggest fear, the fear that I had no emotional depth. All through my childhood I had been accused of being insensitive, cold, and emotionless. What if everything I wrote was cliché? Vacuous? What if I had no substance? No soul? Without substance I had no worth. I stopped writing for years. I tried but my confidence was destroyed I did not want to write pretty poems, I wanted to write meaningful poems. Everything I wrote seemed so empty. It was a very long time before I took the criticism and used it to strengthen my resolve as a writer. I hardly remember the years I didn’t write I became very withdrawn. I offer my poems to a much larger audience now as part of a resolve to be fearless at least where writing is concerned.

Lament

In my eyes you always ascend

A moon amongst stars heavily crossed

A poem with a lamentable end

*

On ritual we came to depend

The value of labor, to comfort lost

In my eyes you always ascend

*

For peace we often pretend

How invasive this winter frost

A poem with a lamentable end

*

Let us not secrets but intimacy defend

For love, sanity is a meager cost

In my eyes you always ascend

*

In aspersion we invariably descend

Temperaments on tempest tossed

A poem with a lamentable end

*

If only an apology could mend

But hearts do not burn on exhaust

A poem with a lamentable end

*

First I want to give credit to my inspiration for attempting a Villanelle.  My poem might not be a true Villanelle as I always miss something when tackling an unpracticed  form.

http://reowr.wordpress.com/2013/09/18/nothing-left-a-villanelle-and-challenge/

I thought it might help if I had a little structure and I think it did because I was so absorbed writing the poem and working out the form that I was able to let go of my stress. I have a few forms I use haiku, tanka and what not but I tend to avoid rhyming forms not that I dislike them just that my brain doesn’t really work that way. They are a challenge. I love Villanelle though (check the link and you will see the form in its true glory) and I think it is important to challenge yourself.  I don’t think I ever do justice to the forms.

Cipher

Cartilage and eidolon

This intractable womb

Scars on possession

A world too small

To accommodate

Forgiveness

*

“I” have become

The guilty party

Having exorcised

My ancestral demons

There is no one

Left to impeach

There is only me

Inmate orange

And truncheon’ed

A prisoner and guard

Coalesced

*

A cage fastened

By tremulous hands

To survive I slept

Year after year

Waiting for life

To become

My own

Waiting for a life

Above

Congenital defect

*

Now

A myna echoing

The heartache

Of a forfeited youth

I’ve the lost the key

And become the cipher

*

Cipher can mean code, alphabet, or nonessential person

After yesterday’s counseling I have found myself feeling very vulnerable. I have withdrawn emotionally even from myself so it was very difficult for me to write. There were just too many locked doors for me to produce anything that I was really happy with. I hope tomorrow the stress will ease and I will be able to write more freely if not I might go out and take photos instead of doing my usual daily poem hopefully you will forgive me if it comes to that. Please feel free to suggest some prompts for me in the comments it may help.  On a really positive note yesterday I got 30 likes on a poem! I have never gotten 30 likes on any entry aside from my About and I feel that only cake will do to celebrate. So thank you!!!

Unspoken

1

My inept tongue nests

Inside a shallow windpipe

Spurning all but script

2

I adjust my smile

Three times before withdrawing

My heart completely

3

Starless truths gather

Like magpies in the cartridge

Of a trusted pen

–

Excising dead flesh

I burgeon pink and fertile

From a would be grave

*

I really couldn’t write today I was much too distracted and nervous. I had an appointment with a counselor. I was dreading it but in the end the woman was very nice. I feel embarrassed now after the fact. Did I make myself look healthier than I am? I tend to gloss over my problems when I get nervous. I also laugh when I get nervous. Did I come off as whiny? Or cruel? I told her I wasn’t happy with my Neurologist and I feel very bad about that now.  Ugh…guilt. I did manage to tell her about my social anxiety, memory problems, and desire for more independence maybe even taking on part-time manual labor sort of job something strait-forward and not to people intense. I didn’t mention my past in a way I want to talk about it because I feel it is affecting me and I think it will be helpful in drawing a more complete picture. I don’t want to spend session after session on my past though, I want to focus on concrete future goals, but I think it is necessary because it was unhealthy.

Also I submitted this to Carbon Noise Poetry

http://kshawnedgar.wordpress.com/2013/09/15/quarantine/

Egoism Snippets

1

Who exists

That does not euphemize

With metaphor?

Who exists

That speaks of their faults

With neither pride

Nor placebo?

2

I have lied

To spare myself

I do not

Know how to face

Your pain

Without my ego

Assuming

A comparative

Misfortune

–

I do not

Know how to court

Your brilliance

Without

Turning on

Artificial lights

That I might not

In proximity

Darken

3

I was not born a poet

I neither command

Nor navigate the stars

Sometimes

Paranoia drives me

Underground

Into cellars

Pungent with decay

That I might

Entertain my vices

Unobstructed

4

Emancipated

By confession

I compose

These words

In the residue

Of an instinctive

Retreat

Shamelessly

Esoteric

I speak

Only that

I might be

Relieved

*

I was just contemplating certain aspects of human nature, I used the pronoun “I” broadly though I am guilty of being egocentric at times as well

Implicit

His lips

Pass through me

Laconic

Omnivorous

Lungs bellowing,

Insurgent

*

A wallflower

Unpinned

His heart beat

Echoes

My breath

We exchange

Vowels only

Destiny

Implicit

Prompt 21 My Story

This weeks prompt is My Story any of you who read my post “My Story” got a preview. Hopefully you’ve been contemplating, maybe you’ve even gotten started, maybe you’ve even finished. For those of you who didn’t read the prompt preview or for those of you who just need a reminder choose a period of your life to relate (if ambitious you can do an abridged version of key moments of your life up until this point).  My own story attempts to answer the question “What triggered you to write?” I want your story to answer a question as well but it need not be the same question in fact it can be any question at all “What is the driving force in your life?” “What is love?” “What is the most profound spiritual experience you’ve ever had?” The question can be deep or it can be much simpler “Why do I love penguins?” “Why do I hate hotdogs?” The story you share can be light-hearted and funny or it can be the kind of story that leaves your audience in tears or it can be something in between. You can be the hero, the villain, or just a neutral character in the story. I have shared some dark elements of my nature and past. I have shown some of my character flaws,  you do not have to share anything you do not feel comfortable sharing. If you want to talk about summer camp and you loved summer camp talk about summer camp. It is up to you. If you want to share a photo or artwork share something particularly meaningful to you, a work that you are especially pleased with). Your entries this week might be long so it will take me longer to read and comment on them. I will get to all of them though as I always do. I have a busy weekend so I may not get started until next week.