When I Was 20, I Lived in a Living Room

And I wrote about all my present events as if they were in my past. It's a strange thing to do, but at the time it made sense.

See,

I felt bulletproof for a little while.

And then I realized I was wrong, but it only made me feel bulletproven, validated.

As in,

"No, I am not bulletproof, but here -

look at all this bullet-proof.

I have the wounds to show you.

I'll lift up my shirt;

you will see

I am riddled.

come, occupy my negative space."

And so,

we acted like happiness was a score to be settled

- a dual.

Pointed earned and lost through laughs and smiles, or...something like that.

- touche.

Score tied, zero-zero.

Sometimes they call that "love."

But in actuality, there is no winning or losing. There is only luck

, and inertia.

Keeping the planets lined up (in just the right way),

Keeping the stars saying yes (or no, sometimes),

Guaranteeing - at the very least - that any part of the dust in my lungs might find its way into yours

, or vice-versa.

And now, instead:

stick

tick

click

b o o mstayawhile

s t i c k a r o u n d.

(putmymouthonyours, the rest is easy [or so they say])

i'm just saying,

if you stayed in my living room,

i'd let you keep your clothes in my garage.

the shorter story

Things are tentative, and it's been a sad year. Or at least that's what the calendar says. Where did all that time go, mapping out the future, darting around the present: shifting, worrying, letting things go. Letting days turn to days, as if days were just days and nothing more.

--

Things that scare me:

(at the moment,) myself

(and as always,) the uncertainty of the future. Not having something to do with my hands

(and at the moment,)

, or any of my limbs, now that I think about it. Not having prepared adequately for the present, at least not this present, one that, at this point, is largely a museum (shockingly undusty) anyway. Leftovers from another lifetime. Things I've lost, resurfacing in daydreams.

oh, shit.

The things lost, not even countable. Not quantifiable, cannot be communicated. A whole life.

What I want: to be someone who is comfortable having everything.

Because I know I can have it, if I want it

Instead, what I am: someone who is comfortable only having nothing.

and I have it, because i want it.

I can't be so surprised.

How can you expect to build something when you only know self-destruction?

How can you build a home when all you know how to do is leave?

And who will you allow to be there when it finally gets hard, when you're only the shadow of a persona?

But just because it's not surprising, that doesn't mean it isn't sad.

I've never really just

listened

to someone cry. I've never just received someone's feelings. I don't know if I've given them in a way that's real.

Always the same: rationality, logistics. F e e l b e t t e r s o o n feelbettersooner.

These things are easy, yeah, everyone loves easy things. But these things aren't honest.

My life's been simple before, yeah, everyone loves a simple life. But this life hasn't been honest. This life hasn't been intimate. This body has been dependable, but the person who lives in it hasn't. I don't want to feel fine, because things aren't fine. It's as simple as that. Alone now, I answer only to myself. This can go one of two ways:

1) The way it always goes

2) The way it's going to go this time

It's time, finally, to grow up. What better time than the present. What better time to do something hard than when things are already so hard. Why bother to go easy on myself, when, all this time, life's been going so easy on me, and here I've been, just along for the ride.

But this is not a ride. This is real. No longer a game of winning or losing. This is decisions. These are ramifications. What you do is consequential. WHAT YOU DO IS CONSEQUENTIAL. What you do is consequential and this life is yours and what you do is yours and who you love is yours not to own but to care for and if you don't own up to these things, then these things will disappear from you, life will continue to happen to you, you will live, or you won't, but most likely you will live, you will live even if you hate it, and you will live because if you don't, then these grains, all these grains that were once so individually small, they will sift and switch and slip through your fingers and will never slip back, they will never un-fall, because

gravity

still

exists

, and suddenly - so suddenly - there is nothing in your hands.

--

I miss the future, the infinite possibilities, and I miss believing that things are good and that i am good and that it was so simple to live int he present tense, even though things are never really simple at all,

except for re-attaching laptop keys or taking out the recycling.

And the tragedy of growing up seems to be that growing up is only a tragedy.

And the truth is that the truth is maddening.

And in the tallest, widest windows - windows so large that they are only the dark - I catch glimpses of ghosts. But, no, it's only the light off the computer casting itself onto me in a reflection.

Just me, and I didn't want to lie anymore, so I told the truth.

And the truth was maddening.
Because I forgot - or i didn't consider - that it's not about the lies we don't tell, but about the things we do or don't do so that no one has to build their reality around them.

anachronistic heart

There is a girl in the Valley who grew up from the ground. I never knew her until now, but from what I felt, I could have guessed that her hair was scented with the orange groves she grew up on. Like nights spent building fires unsupervised on front lawns. Her hands smelled like dirt in the way it’s only understood by children, and they pointed straight up at the sky. Unmarred by industry or coldness of heart, the plain stretched uninterrupted, and in every direction, it came to meet the sky. We spoke for the first time; I asked if the stars could be mine. She didn’t speak, only looked into my childhood.

She smiled and pointed up.

She hadn’t given me the sky, she had simply introduced us.
-
There were reasons I never knew the sky. Mostly because in the depths of my own concrete jungle, she and I never chanced upon each other during any of the lives I had spent sprawled across asphalt greens.

But there were signs.
When I was 7 I raced the boys across the playground lined with wrought iron, blooming from the concrete, pointing to something that appeared to be hidden behind the silhouetted buildings. But it was above our heads. Sirens spinning crimson and the steadily frantic cadence of car alarms formed the susurrations that lulled me to sleep each night. They hinted at something more. Because everything where I’m from is jaded, even the sounds know they’ll dissolve into the wind.

In Another Life We Would Have Been Artists

An activist's manifesto.

I don't usually like cross-posting, but, prompted by Vashanti I've been meaning to write a blog post about what activism means to me/why I do it. This is my column that's running in today's issue of The Eagle. A little background:

• I a write biweekly column. About hipsters. I know, right?
• This happened. Campus politics exploded. Activists and journalists alike suspended the notions that cigarettes are not a food group and that drinking every night is socially unacceptable. It was a time of crisis, y'know? A list of demands was made by the campus community, and then this happened. I'm not sure if anyone knows what to do with themselves right now.

-----

Dissent: it’s a theme I’ve covered in this column all semester. I’ve discussed it in the context of hipster history (hipstory, I suppose) – bandanas, skinny jeans, flannel, they’ve all at some point been donned as signs of solidarity, as separation from and statement against the mainstream. But their meanings now have largely been stripped of significance and appropriated into the fashion of the contemporary hipster, leaving histories of rebellion in their wake hidden under the guise of – you guessed it – irony. And although individuals sporting this style may catch a lot of flack, hipsters are not what’s threatening our generation. Rather, they are indicative of a much bigger, much more harmful issue: complacency.

It is easy for us to take for granted the freedoms we enjoy as a result of our predecessors’ struggles. Because of this, it is even easier for us to assume that these struggles are over, that all those nasty “-isms” don’t exist, and that there is little to nothing left for us to fight or defend. We have watched the most radical generation in our nation’s history age into conservativism, and we have watched the generations after that follow their lead, assuming either that the fighting is done or that it is futile.

But there is a greater stirring in our lives. It is a wave of recognition that some things (many things) are still just not right. We are the most highly educated generation that our country has seen, and as a result, we recognize injustices – whether they be the inadvertent results of misinformation, or atrocities spurred by ignorance or motivated by hatred.

Our generation does not know exactly what it is fighting for; we do not have one single cause, but honestly, it’s nice to see someone care about anything anymore. The only thing worse than the passive aggressive Hobbesian nightmare that is Internet fighting is passive progressiveness – the ability to realize injustice but the inability to speak up or take action. Perhaps the dissident publication Adbusters said it best: “This is our decisive moment. Either we wallow in debt as passive observers of history and pray that technology will eventually solve all our problems or we actively seize power and deal with the consequences.”

Despite all the controversy we (as a community and a generation) have been experiencing (potentially the largest understatement of my AU career), I am more than proud to have participated in and witnessed the way that various communities have overcome their differences and united in response to that which they oppose.
We have realized that it is not about the differences in our personal solutions but about the greater problems that we all have in common.

No, it is not right that this unification happened at the personal expense of individuals, and no it is not right that anyone must feel responsible for cleaning up the mess that another person or another group has made, but the vigor of response has been simply admirable and nearly unprecedented. We have recognized that the solution is not to walk way from the problem, leaving it for someone else, the solution is to refuse to be silent until satisfied. Talk about “ideas into action,” eh – not bad, right, Kerwin?

We are recognizing that as long as there exists injustice for one, there is injustice for all of us – that once a group’s rights or ability to live safely are taken away, then all of ours are at stake. Yes, in fact, the dignity and safety of one is more important and more powerful than the hatred of others. This is an ideal, and we must fight to make it a reality, or else we are being irresponsible to ourselves.

We can borrow from feminist rhetoric – as long as we live in this world, we are survivors, not victims, of injustice, and we can either continue to live through it like nothing is wrong, or we can take action to correct it. We cannot ask to see our vision realized any longer – we must demand it.

Our rights, our beliefs and our ideologies are not something to be taken and twisted into dirty words used to shame us by those who feel threatened by our liberation. These are ours to value and keep and to empower us to achieve greater things. You cannot claim to know fully (and therefore claim the right to speak on behalf of or judge) the suffering or indignities experienced by an oppressed group unless you yourself are a part of that group, but we can all do our best to act as allies and recognize what is wrong and how to help.

So yes, injustice is everyone’s problem, but I’ll acknowledge that activism isn’t everyone’s solution. Thankfully, we have been given the gift of diversity, so that individuals may utilize their different talents to effect change. Activism takes many different forms – it is not limited to the picket-sign protest of yester-generation. Activism comes down to who you are on the day-to-day, if you are living what you believe in. The opposite of hate isn’t love – it is justice, fairness and respect.

So if we’re truly going to be defending all those abstract nouns that we believe in so strongly, then all of us – journalists and activists (we have more in common than you think) – must commit to achieving it, not just by discussing it but by owning up to our responsibilities and living it – and there’s nothing ironic about that.

Confessions of a Teenage Runagay

AND THAT'S WHAT IT WAS. Running away was supposed to be arduous, maybe treacherous. And although it was terrifying, when it came to the rough-and-tumble-hitchhiking-living-out-of-a-knapsack lifestyle, I lucked out. There was a small house, there was a big house, there were a bed and a couch respectively, and each night I played out mild nightmares of prodigal return.

I was high every day. I was drunk every night. And in my sleepy mornings in between desperate glasses of water, my headspin caused the makeshift sleeping bag glide against the floorboards. It felt as though a reckless inertia was driving the particles of my body away from each other, which made sense since - as far as Rockland County is concerned - I've vanished into a black hole anyway.

And there you were the whole time, unfalteringly, unwaveringly beautiful. Like watch you in the car when you close your eyes to sing along beautiful. Like hazy teenage trips to the back of my mind when I would trace the shapes of girls for the first time. Now at 19, I'm old enough to feel embarrassed about it but young enough to clumsily hope for more.

We couldn't always hold hands in public, but we could make out in your car. And we did. In a very specific way. Like gravity, like collision. Like the way two teenagers make out in an airport parking lot, hungry and impatient, because that was who and where we were. An agreement made in a fever dream. We felt scared, but never alone. We felt right (we were right). We felt stupid ("We are so stupid"). We felt big (it's still true).

Because I knew that if I knocked long enough at the curve of your ribs, if I lingered just a bit, your anachronistic heart would wake, answering me suddenly, and I would be granted permission to live within the walls of your body.

And you didn't even come with any weird surprises. Not even a tacky winter coat.

In my time here I learned to talk to animals. I feel like that makes it sound like I fell flaming from the sky into the desert, where I was rescued by Bedouin people and given special powers. Or like I'm Eliza Thornberry (and however she got her powers, I don't really remember). In actuality, I just met a dog that didn't know she was a dog and a cat that thought I was a cat. Animal-queer is what Charles said. And I thought it was funny. And then I hid behind your best friend because the cat kept hissing at me.
--
Postcards from Mexico.
Postcards from Dallas.
Postcards from the road.

I am in none of these places, not right now, but they are from where I'm sending my love. It's unrequited, the way we all secretly like it, because there's no return address. Because there's no return, not really, anyway.

I just can't believe I left all my underwear at home. Scratch that, I can't believe I left all my underwear where my parents live.

I'll eventually have to trek it back to the East Coast. And if I could go back on wheels, I would. Fuck, If I could go back on foot, I would. I would send my love not from the places I am, but from the places I've been, so even if you try to go looking, you'll just find tire tracks and whispers, if that.

This is my pledge to never stop moving.

(If anyone feels so moved to read more on the adventures, check out my Autostraddle piece toooo).

Pretty Girls Don't Light Their Own Cigarettes

Hello, look, here I am back on the Internet!
Obviously, I've been pretty busy, but I've been writing a lot, just not here. You may or may not be interested in checking things out on Autostraddle or The Eagle.

This actually is an abridged version of a piece I did for my creative writing class. Also it's only the first half because shit's just too long.

I was trying to figure out why I smoked.
--

Bugler Tobacco

"I never thought this would be us, never thought this would be me, you know? I mean, it's whatever though. Do you have a light? I left mine upstairs.
Thanks."

What the hell is going on? I wonder. I'm not wearing shoes, it's 5:57 a.m., and we're waiting outside the McDonald's because it doesn't open til 6.

"Brandon, roll me one? You can use my tobacco."

Marlboro Golds
My parents were smokers when I was younger, and a little smoke went a long way in our small Manhattan apartment. It crept out of the kitchen, where my parents lit Marlboros on the stove. It sneaked around the corner into the living room and settled in the fabric of the couch, where I would lay whining, "Paaaaa, how many more puffs before we can go to the paaaaark?"

Once I burned myself reaching out, fascinated, to touch the ember glowing orange on the end of my dad's cigarette while he knelt down to button my jacket.

I begged and pleaded and threw the occasional tantrum, and for my thirteenth birthday, they quit.

Camel Lights
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but it is also the truest form of rebellion, or that's what you can be tricked into thinking.

The summer of my sixteen, I learned to sneak and smoke and not get caught, because smoking is an art form of the young and stupid. The only girl I'd ever loved or loved since, even the way you love at sixteen, had gone across the sea to a place where you could smoke at our age. And she did, so I did, because I thought it romantic. I wanted to feel close. She bought a pack of Camel Lights. I followed suit. I wanted to feel close.

Late summer nights led to acrobatics, contorting my body to fit out my window, to bare feet on my roof. Coughing and sputtering like a 16-year-old with a cigarette does, I stood against my chimney, sharing secrets with the sleepy silhouettes of Clay Street and watching the cars pass pass pass through the gas station down the block.

Marlboro Reds

They slouched against walls in the faculty parking lot, those kids. They chain smoked Marlboro Reds because they were cheap and gave you a really nice headbuzz, or that's what they told me when leaving school late after leaving class on time, they offered me a Red.

For the most part though, that wasn't us, my friends and I. We were the good kids. We were always in class, and when we weren't in class, we were in the school. Honors courses, extra curricular activities, and early applications to college marked us.

And that was tiring.

Acing tests, we ducked out early to trade drags in ventilated bathroom stalls or, on the weekends, abandoned playgrounds. And while the cool kids were getting drunk in their parents' empty houses on Friday nights, our weekend cruises around town were incomplete without a stop at the convenience store to pick up a pack (requested in a gruff voice, as I thought one needed to sound tough to buy cigarettes) before heading down to the river to kill a pack and talk all night.

Smoke creeping into our lungs, we felt a pulsating rebellion moving through the chambers of our hearts, into our bodies, to our fingertips, still holding our cigarettes. We left high school desperate for change, but we were unsure if it was a change of scenery or a change in us.

Camel No. 9s
Having shaken the gruffness from my voice and the illegality from my age, I began to purchase Camel No. 9s. Each drag was unapologetic hometown nostalgia, every pack deceiving me into a fond re-creation of my high school experience. I disregarded ridicule or loneliness, favoring the last memories of my friends, an after-prom weekend at the Jersey Shore. We were sober still (kind of), and in our sweatshirts we beckoned the dawn and waited for our moments to become memories.

In college, packs once split among friends became my own. Piling up like bricks, instead of shutting us out, they walled us in with each other on smoke breaks, bumming one here and there, no big deal, got a light?

Parliament Lights
I could call it a social thing.
I could call it something I only do when I'm drunk.
I could call it a stress-relieving tactic.
I could call it something to do with my hands.

I could, and I have, but with a cigarette behind my ear at all times and smoke breaks working their way into my walks between classes, I finally have to admit it:

I'm a smoker.

I Was Going to Google It, But I Thought We'd Have a Conversation Instead

I WANTED to document 30 minutes of an amphetamine crash.

5:04 a.m.
These are the most unproductive moments of my life. My heart has never beat so fast, and my eyes have never moved so slow. I'm darting. I'm shaking. I'm drafting notes.

Is this a panic attack?

The sun doesn't rise until 6:38 a.m., did you know that? The fuck is that about? Did you know I'm a little more than a mile from campus, and there's thunder and lightning and rain, and that might make it dark for a little longer? I think it will, and I don't have an umbrella or a hood or an excuse.

No, really, is it?
Hours ago my heart felt like it would swell until it exploded. MY BODY WAS ALL CAPS. I was so excited. I love(d) you all, I want(ed) you to know it. My arms tingled. My thoughts chased after my words, which tumbled carelessly and endlessly out of my mouth, my eyes were bright. I laughed into your collarbone, I told you all how much you meant. Now, alone at 5:09 a.m., an amphetamine rush is only panic. My mouth is dry. I don't want water. I want water. I have to get up for water. No water. Where is my love now, where are my thoughts? I have no more words; the insomnia stole my words. Where are all those whom I've neglected for fear of missing? Where are all those whom I've avoided because they kept calling, unknowingly waiting for my anxiety to subside? Where is everyone now that my hands are shaking and the sun's still hiding and the clock moves two minutes forward only to fall one minute back?
-
I think I have effectively broken every basic rule my parents have ever given me. All at once.
I think I look like an asshole when I try to dance like a hipster. I think everyone looks like assholes when they try to dance like hipsters. But I think I do it wrong, so the asshole-ness is extra. Like, I get a gold sticker.
-
By the way,

Sorry I stole the sheets from your bed.
Sorry I didn't let you know what was going on. I didn't mean to, or not to.
Sorry I was drunk when you saw me. Sorry I'll be drunk next time you see me. I'm actually only a little sorry, but I know I should be more sorry, so here's my apology.
Sorry I did exactly what I begged you not to months ago. Sorry I cried then. I cry easily; it's a little stupid and a lot embarrassing.
-
What if we made fewer confessions and told more truths?
-
Sometimes there are nights that disappear into haze. Maybe you forgot what you were on.
Sometimes you wonder where you were all night, and then you wonder where you should have been, and you wonder if you should have been the source of the noise. If you should have been making the floorboards creak and wail with your jumping, if if the walls would have been happier to echo your voice. Entire portions of night disappear. Where did they go? More importantly, where did I go? I think that I stopped existing for just a little. I think I got lost in an alcove; it was pretty dark, y'know?
-
I think that I live far away from home, though I don't really know what that means.
Hometown nostalgia tricked me in those last few days, made me think it was real. Made me desperate to be seen before I disappeared. I wanted to be seen. I wanted to be wearing skinny jeans and plaid, I wanted all of you to see how the band of my boxer briefs peeked out the top of my pants. I'M GAY, I wanted you to know. I'M GAY, and I was gay when you knew me, but now I'm not sorry, and no one needs to tell me it's okay and that I'm okay and that high school doesn't really matter, because I always knew those things. It's just that now I believe them.

Leaving was sad. Leaving was final.
They said you'd go to college, and you'd come back, but you'd never come back. I think I'm going a little farther this time.

About that thing, about my parents, about how we fucked it up. We just fucked it up, this thing. That they always saw their lives, secure and prosperous, without lesbian daughters or heartbreaking arguments or silent stalemates. We should have been sad to see each other go; instead, I think we're relieved. How does that thing happen? That thing where your life wasn't what you wanted or expected or believed? Does it happen to our unhappy, middle-aged parents? Or does it happen to us all?
-
But hey, what am I scared for? Hey Brandon, didn't we realize today that everything, every moment has already happened at some point in time? All of this has already happened; somewhere it's done. It's just a matter of getting there. I'm worried about 6:38 a.m., but that's okay, because by 7:38, I'll know. It's just a matter of getting to 7:30. Life will just happen until then; we'll get there. We'll know.
-
5:33 a.m.
Street lights still glowing orange. Can't tell if it's raining, can't see through the blinds. Weather.com says it's raining. Guess I'll have to trust that. I wonder if, when I get outside in an hour, I'll be trapped between places, locked out of one apartment, a mile away from the next. It's going to be raining, which is too bad, because I wanted to walk along to the sunrise. Maybe I should memorize these directions, just in case the newly inked napkin melts through my fingers on the way.