You are the only one in my audience. A stage like a living room floor rug. Any hotel room with the furniture pushed away. A stage like any staircase I might find. In fact, it must be a staircase.
Find a staircase with me on.
Hiding in black. High heels, sheer hose, a long, buttoned up and well fitted jacket. Turtle neck. Covering this light with darkness because I know I am electric koolaide inside. I have a cigarette and it is smooth between my fingers as I show it to you. I flip it roll it finger it - I capture it with so much genuine attention and focus that it is all you can do to watch me pay attention to the cigarette.
You sit daringly close to a stair and watch so I might continue. You never know what the stimulated encouraged appreciated praised mind might come up with. That's what you do.
So, let's find out...
Could you hand me the candle I earlier lit that now sits on your table? Or were you smiling leaning back against the club wall. You trust this moment will go on forever and you relax into it. I place the candle on the stage below where I stand, flicker light shadow dance up my able legs, as I take my time bending down to touch the end of this smell this fresh cigarette to the flame, we meet somewhere eye to eye, the pathetic cigarette falls from my fingertips for the last time and I can not remember ever having wanted to inhale smoke or anything but to feel good. To open up. To be seen.
To show.
An audience of only one. Both of us wondering the same exact thing;
what might we do with an unlit cigarette?
Hollywood, CA
the song: Marilyn Manson's "Tainted Love" cover
A Study in Domestication, or: How To Be Apart
Breaking the Addiction
the song: Marilyn Manson's "Tainted Love" cover
A Study in Domestication, or: How To Be Apart
Breaking the Addiction
March 31, 2005
Hollywood, CA
Were Born and Will Die
Were Born and Will Die
March 24, 2005
I waited once for someone to say the words. Two words that at that moment would have made a difference. I died on the hill that nite - waiting is the worst way to die.
So when he kissed me goodbye that morning last week, instinct said destroy everything before it has a chance to disintegrate. Sabotage what I was sure to prove would happen.
But some people were born and will die with innocent souls. No matter how many times they are left out on the ledge, pushed over the edge, loved and left for dead, no matter how many times the ice cream truck passes them by, ditties on by as they dash along beside, as sorry quarters spill from between their reaching finger tips, no matter how many times they have been insulted or left out, they will love. And love harder. Like a child, born brave, like they've never been hurt at all.
And they will cry. And cry harder. Every time they have words to say, but don't want to say them because it hurt so badly once before. I swore never again. I swore not the hill again. But instead, when he kissed me goodbye that morning last week, I looked into his eyes and said two words that were never said to me and would have made a difference:
don't go.
He went anyway.
I said the words.
So when he kissed me goodbye that morning last week, instinct said destroy everything before it has a chance to disintegrate. Sabotage what I was sure to prove would happen.
But some people were born and will die with innocent souls. No matter how many times they are left out on the ledge, pushed over the edge, loved and left for dead, no matter how many times the ice cream truck passes them by, ditties on by as they dash along beside, as sorry quarters spill from between their reaching finger tips, no matter how many times they have been insulted or left out, they will love. And love harder. Like a child, born brave, like they've never been hurt at all.
And they will cry. And cry harder. Every time they have words to say, but don't want to say them because it hurt so badly once before. I swore never again. I swore not the hill again. But instead, when he kissed me goodbye that morning last week, I looked into his eyes and said two words that were never said to me and would have made a difference:
don't go.
He went anyway.
I said the words.
Hollywood, CA
A Study in Domestication, or: How To Be A Part
A Study in Domestication, or: How To Be A Part
March 15, 2005
This is Day One, then, they tell me. The first day is abrupt, remarkable, noteworthy, harsh. And the contrast of this domestic situation and my usual lifestyle of couch floor bed guestroom hostel hotelroom trailer tent backseat surfing, is as jarring as graffiti on plaid. Or as conspicuous as a hand painted vanagon in Hollywood. Or as unheard of as a mistreated avo at my fingertips.
I feel like I'm living someone else's life. Lying in a king sized bed - alone. In a bedroom - alone. In an apartment - alone. Right now, on Day One, it is the little things that fascinate me. Like: how witty it is to have two bed stands. One for the electronics (the infrequently needed alarms, the IPod, the stereo, sometimes laptop) and one for the candles, the journal, the incense, a glass of filtered water, or stringed beads (important stuff). And isn't it cunning how some sinks have a disposal drain for organic matter including steeped paper tea bags without staple or string, like Celestial Seasonings. Or how mandatory it is to have an entire drawer somewhere either completely empty or completely filled with imagination items - you know, feathers, rocks, keys, oils, and other things whose seemingly sole use is to be perceived as beautiful and cause an appropriate reaction to the observer.
I dare everyone to make purposeless beauty.
Imagination box.
It is natural, like raw food, like dancing outdoors and singing at the market, like wondering what those slightly parted, slightly hesitant lips feel like on mine (feel like green coconut jelly meat). It is natural to want to not carry thirty pounds of your belongings at all times in a backpack to rehearsal, to class, to auditions, to the gym, to the coffee shop, to the farmer's market, to the dressing rooms at Fredrick’s of Hollywood if someone doesn't stop me. It is natural to want to have a regular spot, maybe in a small cabinet or something, where your toothbrush can be located every single time you look for it. The last place I found my toothbrush was a bar floor. Yup. That's my life.
Or was my life.
And it is natural for one who has not had such things with any degree of consistency over the past five years to feel completely nauseous and overwhelmed at the whole should-I-put-pants-on-a-hanger-or-fold-them decision. Yes, all five pair.
My lover, who has simultaneously come up missing as I begin my three month house sitting Study in Domestication, urges me to pretend it is a play in which I am cast as A Person Who Lives Somewhere, which will close in three months - unless I choose to extend the contract. Until then, I have a sophisticated Hollywood apartment, two frisky felines, one four foot snake, three house plants and a radically competent home stereo system under my personal protection. I feel like everything I ever wanted was just dropped in my lap, but it is made of balloon and my hands are suddenly razor blades. I don't know what to do with all this space - do I fill it with useless things or leave it empty? Is it an Imagination Box or a sock drawer?
And where is my lover anyway?
I feel like I'm living someone else's life. Lying in a king sized bed - alone. In a bedroom - alone. In an apartment - alone. Right now, on Day One, it is the little things that fascinate me. Like: how witty it is to have two bed stands. One for the electronics (the infrequently needed alarms, the IPod, the stereo, sometimes laptop) and one for the candles, the journal, the incense, a glass of filtered water, or stringed beads (important stuff). And isn't it cunning how some sinks have a disposal drain for organic matter including steeped paper tea bags without staple or string, like Celestial Seasonings. Or how mandatory it is to have an entire drawer somewhere either completely empty or completely filled with imagination items - you know, feathers, rocks, keys, oils, and other things whose seemingly sole use is to be perceived as beautiful and cause an appropriate reaction to the observer.
I dare everyone to make purposeless beauty.
Imagination box.
It is natural, like raw food, like dancing outdoors and singing at the market, like wondering what those slightly parted, slightly hesitant lips feel like on mine (feel like green coconut jelly meat). It is natural to want to not carry thirty pounds of your belongings at all times in a backpack to rehearsal, to class, to auditions, to the gym, to the coffee shop, to the farmer's market, to the dressing rooms at Fredrick’s of Hollywood if someone doesn't stop me. It is natural to want to have a regular spot, maybe in a small cabinet or something, where your toothbrush can be located every single time you look for it. The last place I found my toothbrush was a bar floor. Yup. That's my life.
Or was my life.
And it is natural for one who has not had such things with any degree of consistency over the past five years to feel completely nauseous and overwhelmed at the whole should-I-put-pants-on-a-hanger-or-fold-them decision. Yes, all five pair.
My lover, who has simultaneously come up missing as I begin my three month house sitting Study in Domestication, urges me to pretend it is a play in which I am cast as A Person Who Lives Somewhere, which will close in three months - unless I choose to extend the contract. Until then, I have a sophisticated Hollywood apartment, two frisky felines, one four foot snake, three house plants and a radically competent home stereo system under my personal protection. I feel like everything I ever wanted was just dropped in my lap, but it is made of balloon and my hands are suddenly razor blades. I don't know what to do with all this space - do I fill it with useless things or leave it empty? Is it an Imagination Box or a sock drawer?
And where is my lover anyway?
Hollywood, CA
Contingent Upon Nothing
Contingent Upon Nothing
March 08, 2005
What if there were a hill with stones that hadn't moved for aeons, monoliths in a circle - anomaly enigma. A hill where you've been laying since something happened. Something you turned your head away from, refused to make eye contact with, glanced down during and kept on walking. Lying on the hill forever past sunset, inducing coma to protect open wounds and to heal - however long that takes.
What if there were a hill where after you did whatever it was you needed to do, you unfold like the fragile tissue paper wings of the cocooned moth emerging, rebirth as a full grown adult, wiser and this time, even more innocent. You rise from charred Phoenix ashes under the gluttonous clouds - the smothering mother rain - there to wash whatever it is away with a touch you can feel, with words you can hear, with moments that cannot be ignored. Weeping like a widow is how you begin this life again. Crying because you just discovered the purity of your very own everyhuman’s soul.
Purity contingent upon nothing.
What if there were a wind that blew over that whet well-used and newly appreciated body. And although you know this breeze, even, to be a construation of your imagination, you allow it to mean something this time. This time the wind has intention -awareness - more specifically, a fondness just for you. Like you have been Somebody Somewhere's favorite all this time.
And what if there were a shooting star and although it means nothing, this time you create a wish.
And what if there were a wish that was always already true. You open your tear swollen eyes and suddenly, finally, have the maturity to use them for seeing. At last, unblind and able to see the person you were waiting for forever past sunset, like the fog, hardly there, but already becoming clear. She is slanking against a stone like it was the champion's car. She is smiling like the cat who did it. She is smelling like the shameless sex of the stargazer lily. Wandering and wondering how the hell you got into her Lonely Garden. Lying and wondering how she found your Ignoring Hill.
Maybe there’s nothing wrong anymore. It’s been aeons since you even checked.
What if there were a hill where after you did whatever it was you needed to do, you unfold like the fragile tissue paper wings of the cocooned moth emerging, rebirth as a full grown adult, wiser and this time, even more innocent. You rise from charred Phoenix ashes under the gluttonous clouds - the smothering mother rain - there to wash whatever it is away with a touch you can feel, with words you can hear, with moments that cannot be ignored. Weeping like a widow is how you begin this life again. Crying because you just discovered the purity of your very own everyhuman’s soul.
Purity contingent upon nothing.
What if there were a wind that blew over that whet well-used and newly appreciated body. And although you know this breeze, even, to be a construation of your imagination, you allow it to mean something this time. This time the wind has intention -awareness - more specifically, a fondness just for you. Like you have been Somebody Somewhere's favorite all this time.
And what if there were a shooting star and although it means nothing, this time you create a wish.
And what if there were a wish that was always already true. You open your tear swollen eyes and suddenly, finally, have the maturity to use them for seeing. At last, unblind and able to see the person you were waiting for forever past sunset, like the fog, hardly there, but already becoming clear. She is slanking against a stone like it was the champion's car. She is smiling like the cat who did it. She is smelling like the shameless sex of the stargazer lily. Wandering and wondering how the hell you got into her Lonely Garden. Lying and wondering how she found your Ignoring Hill.
Maybe there’s nothing wrong anymore. It’s been aeons since you even checked.
Hollywood, CA
There Is Nothing
There Is Nothing
March 02, 2005
I will slide stealthily across swollen sky. You will track my movement when others are asleep. Meeting where I rule All Things Which Aren't Mine. Possession is illusion - there is nothing we can keep.
I will naked, shiver naked at always arm's length. You will call me the moon and let distance be. We have watched one another since the beginning of time. Wisdom is silent - there is nothing to teach.
And no one to know - we are in constant change. I will observe you to learn you every moment again.
With nothing to promise - I wax and I wan. Unpredictable and impulsive - can one depend on such things?
There's no one to be - even the light I shine, is borrowed from you, it is not mine.
And still, you are there, as if you've only ever wanted to be
making love to your reflection the way you see it in me.
I will barefoot ballet across your rooftop in LA. You will unlock winter windows perchance I slip inside. Jasmine and restraints and music to play . Tell me how exactly you'd like to spend your life. There is nothing to work towards - let's have it tonite.
I will naked, shiver naked at always arm's length. You will call me the moon and let distance be. We have watched one another since the beginning of time. Wisdom is silent - there is nothing to teach.
And no one to know - we are in constant change. I will observe you to learn you every moment again.
With nothing to promise - I wax and I wan. Unpredictable and impulsive - can one depend on such things?
There's no one to be - even the light I shine, is borrowed from you, it is not mine.
And still, you are there, as if you've only ever wanted to be
making love to your reflection the way you see it in me.
I will barefoot ballet across your rooftop in LA. You will unlock winter windows perchance I slip inside. Jasmine and restraints and music to play . Tell me how exactly you'd like to spend your life. There is nothing to work towards - let's have it tonite.
