Thoughtful Thursday: My response to your response to my reponse

My response to your response to my response

is that we can’t keep having this conversation

again

and

again

dragging like heavy stones

over tall mountains

it’s senseless

it’s hurtful

it’s for the best

My response told you that

your response couldn’t mean anything to me

anymore

it’s the same old door that we keep

opening and slamming shut

and folding over in endless loads

of durtee lawndree

Your response made me think about crying

but instead I said, “I’ll think about it.”

and turned away

we used to say the right words once

to answer all the wrong questions

now we say the wrong ones

to answer the things we should

have asked before

So my response to yours is that

I can’t listen any longer

to what you have to say

Your response

might be to push me down

pull me closer

solve our grievances with

love,

not words,

but dear

My response is there’s no more love

only fears left between us

these days

and the only thing left

is to let our silence speak our words.

What's all the fuss? It's just Vacuum Day isn't it?

It’s February 14^th, which means it’s V Day!

When people tell me it’s V day, I’m not really sure what to think. Is it Vagina Day, Vacation Day, Vacuum Day, Vagabond Day? I mean really what does this damn V stand for? I ask someone and they tell me it’s Valentines Day, a day to celebrate love and the joy that comes from having love for friends, family, and lovers. Well that certainly sounds like a holiday I can get down with because I’ve at least got some friends and family and I definitely love them but where does it come from? I decided to search online for some answers and I so I googled “The History of Valentines Day.”

Valentines Day is supposedly named after a Saint named Valentine of Terni (Valentine of Rome), who was martyred on about AD 269. There is a rich tradition of legends that surround him and this day. What is not contested is that he was killed in some way, so may he rest in peace. The question is, was St. Valentine put to death in protest of Emperor Claudius outlawing marriage for single men in order to keep a healthy and strong armed forces? Was he martyred for freeing Christians from Roman prisons? Did he actually create the modern Valentine card by sending a greeting card to a young girl while imprisoned? Or was it actually the Christian church turning the pagan tradition of Lupercalia, a day connected to fertility, into a more holy day?

The fact is that we don’t know the true story of Valentine’s day, just what we’ve pieced together and that it likely is a mutation of many of the legends. We also get the main gist and it’s that Valentines is about love.

How did we go from the death of a martyr and pagan feasts to greeting cards, boxes of chocolates, and romantic dinners for two? Well it comes down to poetry. Poets, writers, artists, etc have notoriously fucked things up for the rest of the world, turning what could just be normal sadness into those of heart wrenching and debilitating throes of madness and melancholy, battles into ill fated losing conquests, and love into the only thing worth living for on earth?

It is told that The Parliament of Fowls, a love poem, was written by Geoffrey Chaucer in 1382 to honor the first engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia. You can go here to read it in Old English. He references St. Valentine in his poem.

“For this was on Saint Valentine's Day,

when every bird cometh there to choose his mate”

Well, thanks for nothing Chaucer. As the day itself grew, love poems such these ones became more expected.  The rise of greetings really began after this era. Take note, this is more than 1100 years after St. Valentine was martyred.

As we all know by now, Valentines day is one of the most contentious holidays of the year. It tends to be one that is either loved or despised by the masses, but what about the huddled few that honestly don’t give a shit at all? It’s just a day in my calendar and I’ve got at least five other things that need to get done today like my workout and a blog. (Oh… getting the latter done right now).

Last year alone, people spent about 20 billion dollars on things like dining out (this is the biggest spender with almost about 10 billion going towards food alone), candy, flowers, getaway’s, jewelry, and more. All this for a holiday that may never have existed if it hadn’t gotten a little traction from the arts community.

For all those people getting valentines, the majority are for lovers, with the minority given to friends and family. My opinion is that people are really just giving out these “other” valentines so that the singles don’t feel slighted.

Many singles have decided to rise up and start their own tradition of an Anti-Valentines day, which ironically enough still often includes things that they rise up against, including anti-valentine greeting cards, voodoo dolls, and candy. We all know that candy fits right into feeding both happiness and sadness so it’s a welcome addition to any package.

Why do singles feel the need to get a gift of angst? Honestly I’m still not sure. I’m currently single and sassy and I’m not just saying that. There is no void that I need to fill with gifts and sappy messages. As a single I don’t feel that I’m “missing out” because I’m not and if you’re also single you’re not either unless you’re currently moping around the house hoping for someone to come sweep you off your feet.

Lately I’ve been having a lot of talks with my “taken” friends many of which now are married with children and they have given me quite a bit of perspective. “You get to do what?” They say as I talk about going out to multiple shows a week, playing shows with my band on the regular, sleeping whenever I want to, leaving the city on a whim for another destination, writing blogs. “Where do you get all that time?”

Well… I just don’t have the same obligations. It doesn’t mean that at some point I don’t want to be pressed for time with the whole shebang of kids and husband, it just means that right now I’m enjoying single life because it only lasts for so long.

So single people, I do understand your longing, I really do. At almost 33 I feel my biological clock ticking, but it’s okay because shit… this weekend I get to film a music video with my band, go to a party and not worry about shaving my legs because no one’s going to see that ish till winter’s over. Enjoy your single time, don’t be pissed at the world because some “one” doesn’t love you, hopefully you’ve got lots of wonderful friends and family so some “dozens” love you.
So what am I gonna do this Valentines? Well it's actually a friend's birthday, so I'm gonna spend this day spending a few dollars on her day of birth. It may ultimately be counted as Valentine's spending, but that's okay because I love her too. 

If you really need a Valentine gift, I’ll get you one, it just needs to be in the realm of $0 dollars because I’m currently a struggling writer.  

Boyfriend in a noose

I played a show last night and met a girl, nameless for right now, that was in one of the bands we were headlining for. I could describe this girl as classically beautiful but it wouldn't give homage to the way her lips curl into a pout and her features are so delicate they could make men leap to their deaths just to kiss her feet.
I met her because her band said they wanted us, Hot Grits!!! to play with them at some of their future shows. When I saw her, my heart immediately dropped without even knowing the information that was to come. I was stunned by her eyes, marked with grave sadness though her spirit remained feisty and compelling. She raised her fist at the men of guitar center for asking "what instrument her boyfriend plays," even though she had come alone to find her own gear and I was taken in. She clearly did not seem to be flailing about through life and soon after, I found out that really she was enraged and numb, which peculiarly can coexist. A week and a half ago, her boyfriend hanged himself. She wasn't the one who told me, her bandmates did. Her bandmates that I didn't know, but were obviously numb too were drinking themselves into a temporary stupor because death sometimes drives people to that, to obsessively placate the side of themselves that wants to cry, die, fly away into no that false hope of good night.
I tried to place myself for the rest of the night into their shoes... into her shoes. If they hadn't said something I would have just thought she had drunk herself into a mindless melancholy, instead I knew she was drinking to get out of it.
It was because of a long ago memory that I cared as much as I did, not that I would have otherwise been callous.

College... [numerous things want for insertion here]
The story of K, a pseudo love story.
She was an RA in an old dorm of mine and I had fallen in love with her words. The first time I met her was a poetry reading at The Kickstand Cafe in my senior year of college. She was doing a reading for her poetry class and I came along to see what my old prof.'s new students were up to.
BT, with an overfilled earl grey singeing his hands said, "I really think you should meet this girl, she reminds me of you. She's good." I took my seat in the back room of the cafe and waited for this girl, this wonder of wonders that BT was so enamoured with and put my jealous face on. She was stealing my place as his favorite student and I had to assess the damage.
The room as a whole is filled with dark and brooding hopeful writers dressed in blacks and dark grays, gripping their coffees a bit too tightly.
Students go up and students sit down and I am on the whole unimpressed and am sure that in this room full of budding writers there's got to be a good one and then he called her. "Kristina, how about you?" I saw her petite frame and medium length dirty blond hair and thought, "she's got nothing good to say." She got up and wrapped herself in the wooden chair up front and flipped through a few pages. Her thumb used her tongue for leverage on the papers and she found her spot. As she breathed to read I could hear it... her sadness, a life of loss unwinding before us. Of course, this is why she is so good - she is lost. And finally she read. She was just reading words, but they were perfectly puzzled together and there was space where space should have been and not where there shouldn't. He was right, she was fucking fantastic, she was better than me, she was sadder than I had ever been; my heart was immediately impaled and wanted the sword to be driven deeper.
I had to know more of her from that point on, this girl of despair. However, there are things I know now about my lust that I didn't understand then. 1. I was captured by something that I knew much about and could translate from her to myself, which was the desperation of despair. I had lived it for many years and was drawn in by it again. 2. Savior complex- when I met her I was better, or as "better" as one gets when suffering from bi-polar disorder. I was convinced that if I just talked to her I could make her better.
Neither of the aforementioned things makes for anything but heartbreak, besides that, she was straight. I found myself needing to be near her and asking one of my friends to let me know if she would be in the SUB - student union building, just so I could see her. My friend JE had a class with her and was on the shallow side of being her friend, meaning acquaintance and so he would sometimes talk to her and I would listen in. I overheard her speak of her pills one day with her friends and she laughed a bit, something I knew meant she was hiding.
A few weeks later I constructed an e-mail, which I liked to consider my Jesus mail, being that it was supposed to "save" her. I wrote about my depression and getting through it and this and that and this and that and hit... save. I neither deleted nor sent this e-mail to her. I saved it and fixed it and savored it for the right moment to send. Thought on how a girl that barely knew my name would understand such a candid e-mail. I never hit send.
March 12th, 2003 - [fuck that seems like a long time ago] the girl I was secretly in love with committed suicide, with a noose around her neck.
For a long time I thought that sending that e-mail would have done something and maybe it would have- for a day. Perhaps it would have made her think for one second that someone cares, but then I thought about the reality of it. At my worst, not even obvious love and affection could make me understand that I was worthy of space, I have difficulty now at my almost best.
Life can often feel like a pile... but when I heard that another, another, and another had committed suicide I couldn't help but feel that momentary jealousy that I used to feel, the "why am I not strong enough to die?" feeling that creeps up and wonders at why I could go only as far as some pills and water.
No day is carefree. I am not carefree. But to those reading I'm kind of glad you're alive and I'm alive to let you read it.