writing for things: juicy fruit

At Being Uncomfortable

I don’t use umbrellas or raincoats or whatever. I keep my one key in my wallet. On a good day, I have a pack of juicy fruit to stuff into my pocket. Otherwise, I leave the house with my phone, my wallet, and a pen. A good day because gum absconds my mouth of productive purpose, contributive energy otherwise shunted to speech. I spend much of my life performing minute gestures towards escape, what some call fidgeting. Fidgeting is a word that is powerless. Its sound and connotation say nothing to the dissociative, nervous, scared, avoidant nature of the movements entailed, towards one’s compulsive fixation on change. “I noticed that my opponent is always on the go / and won't go slow, so's not to focus, and I notice / he'll hitch a ride with any guide, as long as / they go fast from whence he came / but he's no good at being uncomfortable, so / he can't stop staying exactly the same.” Fiona Apple. I see myself, but doesn’t that mean I don’t? 

After a brief search, however, I have come to know that the word is derived from an Old Norse word “fyken,” to move about restlessly. This word, it appears, has an interesting connotation, one that perhaps speaks to the “good day” quality of my juicy fruit. “Fyken” comes from the word “fikjask,” meaning to desire eagerly, suggesting that to fidget and to fuck are linguistically connected. A good day indeed, says my salivary gland, watering at the thought of bursting joy, two pieces of yellow powdery white Juicy Fruit, two to blow better bubbles, to pop away another wandered thought back into the present. I must apologize—there was and remains to be no intended tone of vulgar euphemism. Continuing on. 

I once called these little fidgets—each chew of gum, each removal and replacement of the cap of the pen in my pocket, each twirl of my hair—stammers of the suckle. They seem very much infantile, unaware, casually vulnerable and delicate without intention or protection, like a baby wanting the nipple without the words to ask. They’re societally accepted moments of self-doubt, where we pause in the thoughts of actions, the polarized threshold. Lou Reed says “Between thought and expression / lies a lifetime.” That’s a harsh way to look at it. I must say, I never find myself doubting whether I should eat the last piece of Juicy Fruit. It is one of those moments in a day that I can come to call good when I allow myself to act without the self-censorship of a scarcity mindset. 

I am told that the societally accepted view of Juicy Fruit is negative. I don’t understand. It is relentlessly nostalgic, like the song your parents played for you hundreds of times every single night to put you to sleep. Well, I guess not… Baby Beluga doesn’t seem to have that effect on me anymore. But Juicy Fruit explodes with simple satisfaction for the hundredth time, thousandth time, just as the first. 

In the mornings, I check the flimsy yellow paper containers for straggler pieces; I throw away empty cardboard boxes; I pocket full boxes; By the time I return home, my pockets, filled with unused second-piece-wrappers and smelling most wonderful, are depleted of gum. Of course, in the rushed dethresholding that oft occurs returning from long day, I have no interest in throwing away those empty boxes, in engaging with the morning me that has that motivation, that courage to act. I simply shove the empty box onto my dresser, next to my phone, my wallet, and my Pilot Fineliner pen. I pull my pants off, and I get in bed. A new threshold awaits.

writing for things: door

Chaitan Butte

Feb 4 2pm

Doors are so stupid. I just closed the door to my girlfriend’s room, but I can still hear “That’s So True” pouring insipid and unrelenting out on from laptop speakers, her roommate’s, another dear friend currently catharted by Gracie Abrams. I came in here to stop hearing them, to write, so I closed the door, but the little thin piece of wood, disjointed and never to become whole with the rest of the world again, fails to accomplish its task. I can still hear their every word, their mutterings of thank you and hollerings of wait, what?? And I’m worried they can hear mine, feel my typings, listen to my laments, and wow… the wind. I can hear it fully. That’s not through the door, that’s through the window. My goodness, am I unsafe from everything? Through the roof, I can hear the rain pizzle pazzle. So my attention must turn there, a belief after belief billowing through me like bile: the rain sounds are loud, you should appreciate it, the rain sounds loud, you should be annoyed by it, the roof is so thin, you should be worried, the roof is so thin, you should be annoyed. Now we all say: hello through line!! Hello through line! 

I’m annoyed, and it’s not with this roof and window for their barely filtered access to the chaotic sounds of the mother… or this door, for opening my attention into the world of the rest of the apartment. I’m mad at the door of the room I grew up in, also thin, unprotecting, and impotent. I’m mad at the sounds of my mother, on the other side, controlled chaos funnelled from her childhood into mine. I’m mad at the door, for having closed, only for the simple action to be begged into reversal. Why? Why? Can’t you tell that the door is closed for a reason? Does this door, hack jobbing as a wall to the outside whirl, not mean anything to you? What about the lock, pushed into depression, keeping the handle, the door’s gateway drug, from ever budging. What about that responsibility, the choice to unclick and twist from the inside, a choice between resolution and exile. The door placed such a burden on me.

I would usually be reading calvin and hobbes, trying to pretend like I could flip the pages, scan the panels, until the pain faded. I spent many minutes in this exile, in my room hoping time would stand still, hoping that the monstrous slam and the ominous click would deter predators and parents alike. Maybe part of me grieved the imposition that such noises created, the violence towards kin. The door gave me that, the means to slam, to exile myself into the world of Watterson. Thank you, I might find myself saying to the nearest door. I’m sorry, I might hear myself telling the grief, the inability to not shut out and shut down, the failure to comprehend the infinite permeability of good faith in parenthood.

I’m in a different room, in a different time now. The walls are blue and the desk is in the corner, piled high with books and papers, none of which academic, none of which intellectual. I was wary on intellectualism, wary on the place in front of the desk where a thinker stumped. But stowed against the back of my trundle bed, I’m impatiently waiting to be impeded, trampled into recognition of right and wrong, into perspective. I’m telling myself I know what went down, who went awry, why I’m crying. I’m not crying. But I’m telling myself I know, I know, I know. I hear you, I might have said, were it not for the pressure in my ears, the popping of the lock as I slinked off my bed to the door to do so, the pressure to be heard and the the pressure to hear. Fuckin’ door. Why do you let their pleas through? Why do my tear drops dry up when they enter? Why did the rain stop? Reply from Chaitan Butte

Doors are so stupid. I just closed the door to my girlfriend’s room, but I can still hear “That’s So True” pouring insipid and unrelenting out on from laptop speakers, her roommate’s, another dear friend currently catharted by Gracie Abrams. I came in here to stop hearing them, to write, so I closed the door, but the little thin piece of wood, disjointed and never to become whole with the rest of the world again, fails to accomplish its task. I can still hear their every word, their mutterings of thank you and hollerings of wait, what?? And I’m worried they can hear mine, feel my typings, listen to my laments, and wow… the wind. I can hear it fully. That’s not through the door, that’s through the window. My goodness, am I unsafe from everything? Through the roof, I can hear the rain pizzle pazzle. So my attention must turn there, a belief after belief billowing through me like bile: the rain sounds are loud, you should appreciate it, the rain sounds loud, you should be annoyed by it, the roof is so thin, you should be worried, the roof is so thin, you should be annoyed. Now we all say: hello through line!! Hello through line! 

I’m annoyed, and it’s not with this roof and window for their barely filtered access to the chaotic sounds of the mother… or this door, for opening my attention into the world of the rest of the apartment. I’m mad at the door of the room I grew up in, also thin, unprotecting, and impotent. I’m mad at the sounds of my mother, on the other side, controlled chaos funnelled from her childhood into mine. I’m mad at the door, for having closed, only for the simple action to be begged into reversal. Why? Why? Can’t you tell that the door is closed for a reason? Does this door, hack jobbing as a wall to the outside whirl, not mean anything to you? What about the lock, pushed into depression, keeping the handle, the door’s gateway drug, from ever budging. What about that responsibility, the choice to unclick and twist from the inside, a choice between resolution and exile. The door placed such a burden on me.

I would usually be reading calvin and hobbes, trying to pretend like I could flip the pages, scan the panels, until the pain faded. I spent many minutes in this exile, in my room hoping time would stand still, hoping that the monstrous slam and the ominous click would deter predators and parents alike. Maybe part of me grieved the imposition that such noises created, the violence towards kin. The door gave me that, the means to slam, to exile myself into the world of Watterson. Thank you, I might find myself saying to the nearest door. I’m sorry, I might hear myself telling the grief, the inability to not shut out and shut down, the failure to comprehend the infinite permeability of good faith in parenthood.

I’m in a different room, in a different time now. The walls are blue and the desk is in the corner, piled high with books and papers, none of which academic, none of which intellectual. I was wary on intellectualism, wary on the place in front of the desk where a thinker stumped. But stowed against the back of my trundle bed, I’m impatiently waiting to be impeded, trampled into recognition of right and wrong, into perspective. I’m telling myself I know what went down, who went awry, why I’m crying. I’m not crying. But I’m telling myself I know, I know, I know. I hear you, I might have said, were it not for the pressure in my ears, the popping of the lock as I slinked off my bed to the door to do so, the pressure to be heard and the the pressure to hear. Fuckin’ door. Why do you let their pleas through? Why do my tear drops dry up when they enter? Why did the rain stop? 

bad mood thursday

 words only come easy when i'm not involved

no words

worms

i hear voicing calling out defenses for my lack

he worked through things like worms slowly and surely breaking down soil into meaning

he may not have been prolific but he struggled under forces heavy enough to catapult himself far away

he may not have changed the world but his one goodness proves himself a member of the satisfactory elite, the ones who changed hearts enough to matter

he sees the words that ring his doorbell standing outside in the cold rain and never did he wish for them anything but the dry glow of greatness

this instead of hw

i find myself unable to write the words I am asked, but instead, drawn to the tail of the donkey, the blind meandering of prose that only my fingers can find. does it matter where? 

weird little birthday girl

The song is nine minutes long. Whatever comes out now will be what rocks. 

Tweedle dee dum dum, humming to the tune of my own song, song sung, hips shaken and stirred against the subtle humdum bass drum groove of your soul, against the side, scratching and murmuring in kind, like nothing else except the face of the one you love, the testing and the taking of another step, another chance to make things right, to get the first touch taken and then last breath inhaled, smelling of dew and of lavender, of cauliflower and clouds, of soggy mornings and stale evenings, past the bedtime but before the dawn.

here we go again, breathing, taking whatever can be took, in and down from the tops of the trees and the sidewinding streets of the mountain behind your house, in and inside the mouth of tree tongued chameleons, of a desperate attempt to keep things tied up and swallowed, to keep the night away from the good light, the light that takes you in and turns you around, spins you until you feel like getting rid of everything we ever built together, all the wood beams and dust mites, all the vacuum jobs in spite and in hope that the feeling, the tawny ache, wouldn’t seep back in.

It’s so easy to replace it. It’s so easy to take things slowly when the world feels locked, when time stood still because she had to, because whether the light was red or the line was flat, it's up to you. It’s hard enough to feel dead in the mornings. Try feeling alive. Christ, do we ever give ourselves enough credit? Can we take in anything? There might be something on the edge of okay, always around the corner and inside the bud that never really blooms. How many corners will we turn before the chase becomes a case, before the edge of things catches up to us, and the lights turn out?

We don’t really get along, me and her, but we try, and what does that mean anyways? Why should we try to get along when our breaths do enough for the both of us, intermingling intertwined and in love. Does this make sense? I can’t hear you. No, no, no. I guess things don’t need to be anything other than they are, that this thing in my hands and my mouth, behind my eyes and my sighs, my hear and my stove, this thing i have is. 

in empathy class

 maybe i should take notes from my class on here. I feel this saddening urge to be heard, unfortunately dismissed repeatedly by a hold-on hand held to my face.

hmm re last post... i draw a strong boundary between life and death, between continuity and finality, between the river and the stone, between movement and stillness. 

research write up... fuck dates and titles and shit im done with that!

Okay - an imperative. 

I seek to catalogue emotions in terms of multiplicity. From these eyes, the biggest emotional "problem" suffering our world is mainstream masculinity's rejection of multiplicity, demand of unity, pressure of conformity, reductions of identity, culling of diversity. 

My research will pertain to the soul -- towards a language to describe the force that I currently have too few words and too much meaning to enunciate. I have taken to calling it The River. Here are some words that currently describe the river:

Life. The river is a vital force that empowers the multiplicitous (as in, both literal and metaphorical) metaphorical beating of our heart. It is the blood that our heart pumps, the muscle that pumps it, and the fuel that our engine runs on. It is the substance and sustenance of life. In terms of the river, it is the water that shapes the riverbed, meaning it is also the riverbed, and the downward tilt that it possesses. (if downward tilt is ostensibly incorrect, disregard).

Love. This is a force that is immanent in all behavior, thought, action, and intention. Before we are socialized, we are this force. This experience of life is the experience of pure experience, and lacking all emotional imperatives, we only feel one emotion, less an emotion than a state, ongoing until (and perhaps before/after) death. It is an activity of constant concurrent awareness and acceptance, that I call experience.

Implicit in this selfsame conception of life and love is a dissolution of any mind-body separation. 

Socialization does eventually threaten our ability to experience without action and to act without intention--to live solely on the basis of this force, in a state of active experience--and these threats, when perceived, demand protective intentionality, what we might label as thought, emotion, or action. Here, morality and will arrive, accompanied by compassion and protection. I recognize that here, I am approaching Spinozan territory.

Because of the discontinuity in threat between activity and passivity -- the experience of these threats is a passive, indirect one, as in, the threats happen to us, but the perception of these threats is an active one, as in, "we" perceive the threats -- "we" are not the actors in said perception. Our lack of agency over the reactive protection to said threats is a manifestation of the lack of agency by which these threats arrived. Our agency, prior to said threats, manifested in experience. This does not change after threats occur. Rather, other abilities of the river (here, I approach the edge of my language to describe) react to protect. If there was a large rock impeding the flow of the river, the river would continue to flow over the rock until the rock is eroded (active voice, passive action) by the river. The water does not change, or act, it simply continues to exist in reaction to the rock. The difference between the river and the human is that the human does not possess (or is not taught) the language of this non-dualistic agentic existence, and instead, possesses the language of agency. This multiplicity of agency, to be both active and passive at once, at the whim of the flow of the river, but also, the flow of the river, is key to my research. Because the identity of these actors is, by now and by definition, imprecise, I will try to refrain from using pronouns to describe them. 

Because the river is life, all action to protect this force should be held in terms of it being life or death necessity, with its moral connotations. Because the river is love, all action to is to protect the experience of love, with the moral connotations that that may entail. Actions to protect, or, to use more compelling verbs, to save life and to stay love are, to me, actions of utmost compassion and morality. The more complex a threat is perceived, the more precise and perceptive its reaction must be. Because all action stems from or is motivated by these pure intentions, all action is moral. This does not mean good, but it does mean "not bad."

There is much complication to be added here, but I think this justifies a solid framework to describe my understanding of human emotion. From where I sit here, words like anger and anxiety and hate are imprecise, or inaccurate, as they fail to describe what is occurring in compassionate terms, sans problematization, an evidenced necessity for all description of emotion and behavior. 

This inaccuracy is especially severe in predominantly masculine spaces, where problematization of non-agency is perceived as necessary for improvement, success, and avoidance of weakness-related shame. Here, we encounter problems (intentional word choice): blame, bigotry, othering, and competition. In seeing these behaviors from the moralizing light of the river, I seek to de-problematize these behaviors and allow for explicit (external) compassion to permeate the culture, in synergy with predominant implicit compassion (internal).