gaining-and-losing-and

[gaining-and-losing-and]

[gaining-and-losing-and]

October 2023, Web Weaving: Abject Women

Which reality would you like to plug into? Are you in control? Do I challenge your identity? I could be a vessel of objection from which you may jump off.

I am releasing shame - it will not find shelter here. I let it lay, rotting like it did the bodies buried before me.

[gaining-and-losing-and]

a spiral on hold / mixed media in sketchbook

[gaining-and-losing-and]

Aquarius Moon~ "The girl with the strength to become familiar with her emotions will find that she is not alone in the celestial realms. Everybody has that same stirring in the heart, and she plays these strings like an electric violin"

[gaining-and-losing-and]

Nimmo, Karen. "She is 19, he's 20 - Mille Bobby Brown and Jake Bongiovi just got engaged. Can you be too young to get married?". Stuff NZ, 19 April. 2023, https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/wellbeing/300855036/she-is-19-hes-20--millie-bobby-brown-and-jake-bongiovi-just-got-engaged-can-you-be-too-young-to-get-married. Accessed 10 Oct. 2023.

[gaining-and-losing-and]

acquaintance vs description

“A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.”

— Bertrand Russell, On the Nature of Acquaintance: Neutral Monism

[gaining-and-losing-and]

The world is making little sense.

I know, it’s always been the case.

The Indians landed on the moon; I’m in my room just taking space.

My mother’s in a little screen, I keep her close for my sanity; I watch her movements as intently as she watches TV.

Quick - change the channel I’m freaking out. I feel the weight of this city, it’s bringing me down.

You wanna go? The time is now.

But life’s not a clean-cut dream.

Nick saw the light before the time machine.

So I bide my time.

She’s tracing circles in the sky while I find some kind of intervention so divine it shatters my soul and rebuilds me whole.

Unsure, we push to make do. You know, nothing sticks quite like you.

All the words we’d throw in vain don’t sever ties from the womb.

[gaining-and-losing-and]

spring, november 2021

[gaining-and-losing-and]

𝙾𝚌𝚝𝚘𝚋𝚎𝚛 𝟺, 𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟷 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙳𝚒𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝙾𝚏 𝙵𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚣 𝙺𝚊𝚏𝚔𝚊, 𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟶 -𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟹

[gaining-and-losing-and]

I see your doppelgänger on tiktok of all places. Every part of me was urged to click on this stranger’s profile to get a glimpse of some bootleg version of you I once knew. It’s sad you continue to live in a place I’m not witness to, stubbornly refusing to be seen. You’ve chosen silence, so I guess you are as dead to me as I am to you.

[gaining-and-losing-and]

"He cannot pretend to overlook you. There are more ways than one to communicate that you care."

[gaining-and-losing-and]

Putting this up as a reminder that men can say the sweetest things and still exit when things get too real. Frankly, I'm bored. But as tiring as it has been, I have to admit the self-respect that shines through is astounding.

[gaining-and-losing-and]

There's a black crow sitting across from me, his wiry legs are crossed. He is dangling my keys, he even fakes a toss. This is not the sound of a new man or crispy realization. Your love will be safe with me.

Sometimes I'm lost in a daydream. I'm trailing off to God knows where. The waters were still and I could see the borders of your land. Now my heart feels different, shores between so distant. I am alone, I am free. No one's come to conquer me.

Isn't it rich? Are we a pair? Me here at last on the ground and you in mid air. Where are the clowns? Just when I'd stopped opening doors, finally knowing the one who I wanted was yours. Don't you love farce? My fault, I fear. I thought you wanted what I wanted, sorry my dear. Where are the clowns? Send in the clowns. Don't bother, they're here.

I wish I knew what to do with you, but the truth is I ain't got a clue. Do you? I wish we could just run around and only worry about right now. I hate to admit it but I don't know shit and neither do you, and that is good enough for me, for you, for now.

We were just kids with visions and hearts that coincide. We sailed across the sea aimlessly, no direction or timeline. Don't follow roads paved in gold, they will only let you down. Years to build, in a second it's brought down. A vacant hole will remain that way for life to remind me where the both of you once lied. I've learned more from this than anything I have read in my whole life. Our moment forever sealed in time, our secret as much yours as is mine.

Please, remember me happily by the rosebush laughing with bruises on my chin. Please, remember me fondly... when the morning came I was ashamed, only now it seems so silly. So please, remember me mistakenly. And please, remember me as in the dream we had of rug-burned babies among the fallen trees and fast asleep beside the lions and the ladies. Please, remember me, my misery and how it lost me all I wanted. And please, remember me seldomly, my hands between your knees. Please remember me, finally, my dear. If I make the pearly gates, do my best to make a drawing of God and Lucifer, a boy and a girl, an angel kissing on a sinner.

Re: Stacks (Bon Iver), Distant Shore (Karen Elson), Send in the Clowns (Mrk Zozelek), I Wish I Knew (Sharon Van Etten), Friends Make Garbage [Good Friends Take It Out] (Low Roar), The Trapeze Swinger (Iron & Wine).

[gaining-and-losing-and]

Sean was a swan gliding above slow moving streams, graceful on the surface but tirelessly treading under waters, his struggles kept secret, only revealed cautiously to those deviant of the superficial. Admittedly, there is an allure to human mysteries that call upon curious minds. The ability to be utterly composed on the surface while struggling beneath left me perplexed as someone who couldn't help but bare her pains. Understandably, this will be uncomfortable for some, but this cannot be taken personally as it's merely a reflection of their own discomfort with wounds yet adressed. He didn't seem to struggle with this as we dove deep into past regrets, insecurities, moments that had left us feeling rejected...but I must've missed something. People don't disappear out of nothing.

[gaining-and-losing-and]

Of course everyone goes crazy over such and such and such. We made ourselves a pillar, we just used it as a crutch. We were certainly uncertain. At least, I'm pretty sure I am. While we’re on the subject… could we change the subject now? Looking towards the future, we were begging for the past. Oh, and I laugh all the way to hell. Saying, "Yes, this is a fine promotion".

Moving backwards, hurt comes after. To touch somebody. You know I tried to make that you. And when you lied, said you didn't want me. Tell me, what was I supposed to do? Moving onwards, feeling strong, but healing doesn't happen in a straight line. If I cry just a little and then laugh in the middle. If I hate you and I love you, and then I change my mind. If I need just a little more time to deal with the fact that you should’ve treated me right, then I'm more than just a little justified.

The wind embraces you in ways I wish I could, around the bend and up your thigh, I would. Oh, the time comes, the time, it always comes too soon. I wish that I could slow it down with you. Sometimes I need something that's so far from me, but if it's not meant to be, I gotta keep moving.

The last time I saw Richard was Detroit in '68. And he told me all romantics meet the same fate someday, cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark cafe. You laugh, he said "you think you're immune". You've got tombs in your eyes, but the songs you punched are dreaming. Only a dark cocoon before I get my gorgeous wings and fly away. Only a phase, these dark cafe days.

It's been some time now, a year or so. My friends say I do too much, I've got a lot on my plate. If there was something, I wouldn't hesitate. I took pride in my even hand. When I took control, I thought you'd understand. If all things were equal, I could be your friend. I could turn around and take it again. And I want you to be happy but I'd rather that you were still with me.

How about stopping eating when I'm full up? How about no longer being masochistic? How about remembering your divinity? How about unbashedly bawling your eyes out? How about not equating death to stopping? Thank you frailty, thank you consequence, thank you disillusionment, thank you nothingness, thank you clarity. Thank you, thank you silence.

I can't think of getting old, it only makes me want to die. And I can't think of who I was 'cause it just makes me want to cry. Can't look back, can't look too far ahead. I was dreaming life away, all the while just going blind. Can't see forest for the trees behind the lids of my own eyes. Nostalgia's cool, but it won't help me now. A dream is good, if you don't wear it out. I try to keep going but it's not that simple. I think I'm a little bit caught in the middle. Gotta keep going or they'll call me a quitter. I'm caught in the middle.

No self-sabotage, no letting my thoughts run. Me and the spiral are done. Burn this camouflage I've been wearing for months, try to get a little happy in for once. I need to let my mind rest while my body reflects. Take that tired heart and go and turn it inside out. I won't let me get me down.

Missed The Boat (Modest Mouse), justified (Kacey Musgraves), Keep Moving (Charlotte Day Wilson), The Last Time I Saw Richard (Joni Mitchell), Don't Fight It Marsha, It's Bigger Than Both of Us (Blam Blam Blam), Thank U (Alannis Morissette), Caught in the Middle (Paramore), Let Me Get Me (Selena Gomez).

[gaining-and-losing-and]

It’s something unpredictable but in the end it’s right, I hope you had the time of your life. You’re a star, and although we bleed the same way, the big world needs you more. So go on again, be reckless with me. All things end.

I’ve got a lover in my bedroom, or the smell of him at least, if he’s out there getting smarter on a free man’s odyssey. God… I’m really gonna blow it with all this empathetic shit. I understand the thing you did and every reason you did it. I got bad news but I didn’t fight. Little did I know, a circle swimming fishy. She don’t mind, she just dances ‘round in her own time, feel the beat. It won’t rain if the clouds don’t sleep, but it’s okay, the sun will come up anyway.

Truth is, all I really want is somebody who wants me. Somebody I can count on who won’t disappoint me. At first it seems easy, I vow not to give up. Let them debase me while keeping my chin up. I got the trigger, but you hold the gun. How come you never put the safety on? So for the time being, I’m being patient. And amidst the bitterness, if you’ll just consider this, even if it don’t make sense all the time. Give it time.

Sometimes I think about the ones that we’ve replaced. All the millions underneath the burnt and waste. And I get sad, because of course we’ll be the same, all of history collapsing in its wake. Maybe it’s enough that I have laid here. Maybe it’s enough that I am known inside my head. Maybe it’s enough to know that we were here together. And that we are the ones for now.

Wind in my hair, I feel part of everywhere. Underneath my being is a road that disappeared. Late at night I hear the trees they're singing with the dead, overheard. Leave it to me as I find a way to be. Consider me a satellite forever orbiting. I knew all the rules but the rules did not know me, guaranteed.

Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) (Green Day), Lucky Me (Moses Sumney), Big Wheel (Samia), The Sun Comes Up (Mako Road), Trigger (Hayley Williams), I Know (Fiona Apple), For Now (Kia Grannis), Guaranteed (Eddie Vedder).

[gaining-and-losing-and]

You’d think my childish fear of needles would’ve passed by now, especially being an inked lady, but when the nurse whipped out the injection containing my Pfizer shot, an audible “Jesus Christ” couldn’t help but escape from me.