Not Normative

I've always lived in a funny place socially.

I think everyone has multiple personae, but mine are ripe with disparity. 

But, what has always been, and continues to be the most pervasive and insinuating is just this;

I'm not normative.

I also don't feel queer enough, or straight enough. I don't feel like a bachelor and I don't feel like fine, American Wife Material. I don't feel discordant enough, I don't feel distant enough. Nor am I on your wavelength, smiling, holding your hand. I can't whisper "I know", but I will sit across the room from you and nod. I'm always on the goddamn fence. 

Sometimes I feel like my heart is too wild and it will get the better of me. One day I'll disappear into one of it's whims. Sometimes I'm so filled to the brim with something, some fixation, a thought I feel like I'll burst with it. I give in so the pounding stops.

Lately all I have been able to do during the week is drag myself home after work and hide in my bedroom, I've been so exhausted. I'm doing the bare minimum, really. There are days I do fine, and there are other days where I have to put all my energy into the show.

I suppose we all feel that way though.

 

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On alone

It's a too-warm evening in NYC, and while walking to the train, a friend says;

"I get tired of being alone."

And it struck me that "alone" is something I used to be quite paralyzed of, and now I find a sort of beatific solace in it.

Alone is different from lonely. From lonesome.

I think when I say alone, I actually mean "through my eyes". I'm sure immediately that makes no sense. 

It's just that, there is no one else who will interpret the stars in the sky the way I do. No one feels the same vibrations in their throat when they sing. These are the things we create and experience when we are alone with ourselves. It is how I recreate the world, it is how I build my story.

I love having time for others, I wind them into my tapestry. This summer, I'm seeing the little flecks of gold, the little flecks of red even being woven in. Coriander, poppy red, surprising colors, scented even. 

I tried to convey these things on a too-warm night, and of course my words jumbled and my jadedness blocked my way. Cause I'm really just a kid, wrapped in a cloak, staring up at the sky.

My friend replied;

"Alone is a strange word."

I should have said "Yes."

But I don't remember if I did.

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Learning by Ear

It's easy to laugh at myself and my little
Fits of faith

Because every once in a while I open my eyes, smile,

And I think about Learning by Ear.

When you fiddle, you're not looking to be a virtuoso. Pouring over musical books, the circle of fifths playing round and round your brain.

you're just learning tunes. 

They're simple.

 It's patterns, it's harmony. It is something you feel, it reverberates through you.

I try to be patient - I know I am learning a language.

My teacher's strong voice speaks slowly for my stumbling. I repeat, eek out what she's said. You learn when to come in. You learn how to join the cacophony.

Some of the clearest, proudest moments of my life came when I first coaxed sound from my instrument. When my shaky, tinny, flat little rented voice slowly started to intone, then to chant

And now, every now and again, there's a song. There's music.

Learning by Ear is just that. It's listening, and that is a dying art.

We do so poorly at truly LISTENING to one another. And this is where we misunderstand. If I really listen to you, I can learn your language. I can learn your subtext. I can learn when you're sad. I can effectively learn the cadence, the music of you. 

I might not like it, but that does not mean you are not beautiful. That you are not art. That you are not worth listening to.

I am a silly, wordless jig.

And perhaps you are a Leonard Cohen song.

You can learn us both if you listen.

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Post 25 (One Day When I'm Older)

It seems that
Once I reach the far corner of my day
I curl up in it, and a bit more life bleeds out

Just a bit.
I think this happens to us all; on an exhale
In a look, at the bottom of a glass

And I'm left wondering as I feel
The slow burn of summer, the long days marking me

I'm burning and bleeding, these things are all figurative and somehow
It makes it worse, sort of.

I've always been better with the pain you can feel and see
The pain in your muscles, the pain on your skin.

But the nagging pain in my soul
What do I do to cool that?

I feel myself prickle, I feel myself get angry
Because my mind will not be made up
I make big, hacking strokes at my psyche

I'm sure that does nothing to catch the life
Where it dribbles, unused, spilled.
I'm always spilling, but for the occasional fit of splendor

I'll drink it in, I'll be drunk on it
Careening on something I'm afraid to examine too closely
 But one day I won't be
When I stop worrying at it

One day when I'm older.

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