Casual Conversation

"You're the one," he sighed.

"You're all I could ever want," I replied.

"I'll love you forever," he said with vigor.

"I'll never leave you," I promised.

Under a thatched umbrella, we sat facing a sea with black waves. The moon surfaced sporadically from behind the sailing clouds, but we relied on candle light to pour our drinks. It could have been any night from the last three summers, except I refused to indulge in any alcohol (much to his dismay). I let the sand surround my feet and invade the gaps between my toes. My legs pushed downwards with increasing force till the damp grains began to make my ankles itch. This process preoccupied me as we spoke.

Amused by our embittering experiences, we were trading insults not sweet nothings. We found insincerely repeating to each other all the unfulfilled commitments we had suffered so simple. As simple as the liars, who once convinced us to fill our faith in those hollow words, must have found it.

"I need you," he added through muffled laughter.

"I'll never let you down," I recited - after a moment of hesitation - from a now distant memory.

The End of Poetry

From Black Sand Journal

It is the eve of finals and I know things are bad when my mind subconsciously turns to religion. Not to worry - my real Holy Trinity is Elliott Smith, Feist and Wilco. Since life is a mere exercise in citation, my final swing at poetic writing will be the splicing together of lyrics from my three saviors.

I met a girl, a snowball in hell, she was hard and as cracked as the Liberty Bell. Baby I can't figure it out, your kisses taste like honey. Forget the implications, infatuations end. This very secret that you're trying to conceal is the very same one that you're dying to reveal. You once talked to me about love, and you painted pictures of a never never land, and I could have gone to that place, but I didn't understand. The hope I had in a notebook full of white, dry pages was all I tried to save. It was hard to tell how I felt to not recognize myself. A sleepy kisser, a pretty war, with feelings hid, she begs me not to miss her. You beat up on yourself 'cause there ain't no one else, who feels quite as good to put straight through hell. All my lies are only wishes. You beat it in me that part of you, but I'm going to split us back in two. I thought you'd ask me not to leave. I'm never going to know you now, but I'm going to love you anyhow.

A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

From Black Sand Journal

When I am confronted with an unbearable situation, I make unfeasible promises to myself as a way of coping. I will not let my guard down, again. No one will ever reduce me to tears, again. My heart - now cast in steel - will not feel so much as a scratch, again.

I spent months directing masses of anger towards the world for building barriers that I hesitated to tear down. The walls were too formidable and too familiar, and I felt too frail to fell them. Once the debris began to tumble and the dust clouded my judgment, the last thing I should have been feelings was safe.

All that honeyed anticipation - conceived in a single beautiful, terrifying and utterly forgettable moment - has rotted instead of ripened. My anguish seems thoroughly unjustified. How do I tell people I lost something that I never really had and never said I wanted?

This illegitimate love, it haunts me.

A Blossom Fell

From Black Sand Journal

I felt nostalgic this morning. I put on some Nat King Cole to cheer myself up after three measly hours of sleep. Until the age of four, my Dad used to slow dance to Nat King Cole in the living room as I slipped into sleep on his shoulder. It is tragically appropriate that the song 'A Blossom Fell' conjures up the most vivid memories of those early childhood nights.

From Black Sand Journal

I don't have the right to reveal too many details about my family's checkered past, but when my insecurities get the best of me I wonder to what extent my relationships are doomed by the fact I grew up without role models who completed or complimented each other. I'm not quite sure I know any better than to be an ostensibly strong individual, who can do little more than paper over gaps in the relationships I have been involved with that too often have not been mine own.

From Black Sand Journal

Feminstinct

From Black Sand Journal

I should have stolen this moped. I imagine a woman parked it at the steps of Gould Plaza after absconding from the 1950s. My guess is she took full advantage of modern day America by purchasing a metro card, throwing on a pair of jeans and letting herself loose at some sapphic bar in the West Village.

Or at least that's what I hope she did. My man-hate as of late has hardly been covert. Not that I actually hate men - off the top of my head I can name eight that I consider my closest friends, two of whom I've dated. Though they broke my heart last weekend, the men who pull on the red shirt of Manchester United will always command my love and respect.

But my entire life I've found myself frustrated with gender roles and what people label as 'ladylike'. Long before I could even conceptualize sexuality, I was a tomboy. I liked the ninja turtles and played soccer religiously. I never liked pink or wore anything remotely girly, and those habits stayed with me throughout adolescence. I like vintage Adidas trainers, not Nine West high heels (though I own a delightful 3.75" pair that I wear when I'm feeling masochistic). I love my button-downs, jeans and new blazer more than I ever could a dress. My androgynous style is what I am comfortable with, but it hasn't always garnered the most respect. As a soccer-playing and foul-mouthed 16 year-old, how to attract boys became a huge source of anxiety.

Instead of trying rebuke the unnecessary expectations heaped on me to look and act 'ladylike' (really, wtf does that mean? Cooking? Cleaning? Nodding enthusiastically in silent agreement with whatever my boyfriend just said?), I conformed - kinda. I think I was still myself on the inside - outspoken and unrelenting - but I just looked more like what people wanted on the outside. Ears pierced, hair straight, short skirts, make-up done. This new expression of my femininity was for the sole purpose of attracting men.

These insecurities about my perceived sexuality held me back from embracing something that should have come naturally to me - feminism. In fact, I think my short-lived burst of femininity was innately anti-feminist. Why was I aspiring to be something that made me feel uneasy and awkward? Why did I believe confining myself to mainstream femininity was a prerequisite for male affection? Of course, being feminine is perfectly fine... when it is what you want to be.

Honestly, the misandry is misdirected hate. I got more criticism from girls while growing up than I did from boys, but boys were what I was after. Oddly enough, now that I'm in college and the years of high school restlessness and fake-femininity are behind me, I am the most narcissistic son-of-a-bitch you are ever likely to meet. I wear what I want and choose the way I behave regardless of whatever gender-rules people of either sex may think I'm violating. That is feminism. This all comes back to the reasons I got my tattoo; I fucking wanted it - end of story.

One small but significant caveat to an otherwise liberating story. All this misplaced misandry is inspired by probably the only man I've been involved with who relished the real and raw me. Gotta love the irony.

Let It Die

From Black Sand Journal

From Black Sand Journal

From Black Sand Journal

Runaway ~ Too Late

Lately, as you may have noticed from reading my blog, I have found it difficult to synthesize my thoughts. My attempts at writing posts worth publishing leave me with a knot of loaded statements that linger for a moment longer than they are welcome.

I had a dramatic week. While in the past I have never been averse to chasing thrills, my rationale could not console me on Friday. Desperate words danced frantically through my mind and down to the tip of my tongue, but nothing could convey how I felt better than the regretful look in my eyes - something I had absolutely no control over.

So, in light of my rather humbling experience, I have decided to temporarily give up on words as medium of expression and stick to photography. Just until I stabilize.

From Black Sand Journal

Slow Recovery

Through monochrome eyes I stare at my perfectly made bed from across the dimly lit room. The sheets - pulled taut and tucked in tightly - are deathly still, but my unwise musical palette paints the blank canvas with strokes of life and color.

The flashbacks - triggered by anything ranging from a phrase, item of clothing, street corner, lyric, smirk or beer - unsettle me the most. I leave my current reality to relive a moment in its bittersweet entirety, and when I return I find myself disoriented and disappointed. It is the combination of those two loathsome feelings that propel the sledge hammer towards my hollowed-out heart - fantasy about what my life right now would have been if -

Which isn't at all fair to the phenomenal people still in my life today, who did not leave me and I believe never will. I see a handful of them on a weekly (or so) basis, but for others it has been months, even years. In the spirit of my "Fragments" post from earlier in the week, here are somethings that spark spells of reminiscing:

Disney's Aladdin , the 1992 BMW occasionally parked on 3rd and 17th (sadly it's gray, not green), Yatzi, the score from Grease (especially 'Summer Nights'), item no.88 on any menu, knitting stores (there are a surprising number in New York), fingerless gloves (bonus if they are striped, too), Karate (I still have your brown belt), heavy metal band t-shirts, the smell of cashew nuts, the pink Dunhill packs, Swiss Army knives, Kanye West (because you couldn't stop raving about his new album in December), badly assembled tents (oh, those aborted outdoor sleepovers), Irish pubs (that will never live up to Flanagan's), and Oxford commas (which originated from your university press).

Dodging Bullets

From Black Sand Journal

The hardest bullets to dodge are the ones I see coming. The moment of recognition deteriorates into hypnotic fascination before my body expresses a desire to move. Then, BAM. I'm hit. There is blood everywhere. I clumsily grasp at tissues, attending to the crimson mess that my fatal wound is spluttering before I dare admit feeling pain. I've lost so much blood that there is no feeling left.

I suppose there are no easy bullets to dodge, but ignorance serves me better than anticipation. I tend to bring these things upon myself.