i mean, not literally. i’m not a violent person. i just don’t get people.

reading sara’s very frequent and eloquent posts (even when they’re about ridiculous topics, that woman still manages to sound 100% literary genius) has been inspiring me in a lot of ways. it’s also making my brain run even faster than usual, so i have words pouring out of my fucking fingers.

i want to ride my bike to the moon or go get a new tattoo (something beautiful and painful) or wrestle with a giant dog until we collapse in the sunlight in someone’s front yard.

i want to have passionate sex on the roof of a building where no one can see us but we can see everyone and i think that, in that moment, i might understand people a little better.

i have so much love and so much passion and so much empathy but so little understanding. it’s confusing and heartbreaking and i hope it doesn’t stop but transforms, mutates into something less heartbreaking and more comforting.

breakfast is important, so we’re told. over and over and over.

breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

there was a long period of time where breakfast was the most dreadful (and sometimes only) meal of the day. i would wake up with such anxiety, either from having terrible dreams that i could not separate from memories, and thus, thought they had been real, or from the stress of real life and constant depression. breakfast was gut-wrenching because i knew that if i ate it, i would surely throw it up soon after; but if i didn’t eat it, i would feel weak and dizzy all day.

sometimes, breakfast was safe. when mom would put gel in my hair and spike it just the way i liked, but was unable to do myself. a chaotic mass of jagged protrusions at the front, and the rest tight to my skull like a protective shell. but i could see her frowning with frustration at my inability to eat a proper meal, and at the despair locked away in my eyes that she just couldn’t destroy, no matter how much she loved me.

years later, when i moved out, breakfast became every sunday, with my closest friends joining me at the house with my parents, and spending the day there. family day. breakfast was ritual and welcoming and wonderful.

now, breakfast is occasional. not in a way that’s intentional or painful. but there’s no thought. breakfast happens before work so i have the strength to lift heavy objects. breakfast happens with sarah on the weekends, sometimes in our pajamas, sometimes at restaurants. sometimes breakfast is going for a chai with mom, who is trapped in her own well of despair, and that only i can see, now that i am happy.

breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

i don’t remember exactly when it occurred, but it was certainly one of the cruelest things you did.

we drove with our friend joe in the car to ben’s house to have a few drinks. i only had one, since i was the designated driver, but you three all had an abundance. i don’t even remember what night of the week it was.

ben’s was quieter and darker than usual. he had the house to himself, a rarity with so many family members. i felt like i was somewhere unfamiliar, with the changes in atmosphere. it played out like the innocent beginnings of a teen slasher flick. at least that’s how i envision it now.

we ended up upstairs. all three of us, crammed into the master bathroom; a room i had never entered despite having visited this house somewhat regularly for nearly ten years.

someone, most likely you, suggested that we all weigh ourselves. ben and joe were built similarly: tall and lanky. ben only slightly taller than me, and joe by several inches. i don’t remember which of us went first, and i don’t remember any of the numbers. but i do remember that mine was the highest. laughter ensued and was unrelenting. two men and a woman, all in their early twenties, mocking their friend (or lover, in your case) for weighing more than the rest of them.

joe, i couldn’t blame, because he knew nothing of my past. ben was drunk and giggling uncontrollably, so i couldn’t even be mad at him, though he knew better. but you? you engineered the situation. to reveal to me, subversively, that you thought i was getting fat. despite knowing every struggle i had endured in the decade previous, you put your own selfish desires (and malicious sense of merriment) at the forefront of your machinations. you wanted me to suffer in front of others, because it wouldn’t have been enough for you to simply say it.

and yet, i never uttered a word, even when you were at your heaviest. i never even cared. because unless it’s a dire matter of health, you don’t do that to someone you love.

i don’t remember if i ever told you how much it hurt. how heavily it weighed on me.

i’m always staring

waiting for something grand or

completely banal

•

either way i will

always be captivated

by your mystery

•

i can never guess

what occurs inside your head

but please don’t tell me

through their photography, their music, their words; their souls which they bare for all to see in the name of art.

every time j. scott grand posts a piece of writing, or molly peck or josepha post a photograph, (not that it’s limited to the three of them, they’re just the most frequent that i see) my heart aches a bit. it’s like the most beautiful pain i can possibly experience. it’s like an orgasm in the pit of my being.

and the best part about knowing these people, these amazing individuals, is that it’s not just a one-sided longing to be near to and experience such beauty. they appreciate my art, too; my photography, my music, my writing. they encourage me and drive me and inspire me, and, sometimes, i do the same for them.

and that is so beautiful.

guestdirectedself:

withoutpretense:

Frank Zorn, P.I.

GDSP #6, as directed by J Scott Grand

i decided to go the slightly corny route with the noir theme, but i’m happy with it.

music & narration by me.
(i think i sound a bit like Hank Venture in the episode of the Venture Bros. wherein he’s a detective.)

oh, hey. i made another video.

Frank Zorn, P.I.

yeah, i remember that dame…a world full of trouble on two gorgeous legs. she was 18 when i met her in the alley behind my office. she offered to partake in all manner of unsavory activities for the low, low price of $10; i offered her the road to salvation.

two weeks later, i found her dead in that same alley, a bloody note pinned to her forehead that said, “stop looking, frank.” but i couldn’t stop looking. i’ve gone looking for trouble since the day i could walk, and when someone kills the girl i’m tryin’ to help, i take a personal interest.

i destroyed every son of a bitch in my path to find out why they’d killed her, and what i found was almost more than i could handle on my own. a whole lotta girls, missing from home, forced into a world that was too dark and unsavory for the police to get involved. so i dismantled the operation from the inside and sent the girls home. every last one of ‘em thanked me, as if i was their savior.

but i couldn’t save charlotte. just like i can’t save myself.

i guess some folks just don’t wanna be saved…

(to be paired with my GDSP 6 video)

i wish you weren’t in bed, feeling sick. i wish you hadn’t gone to bed before it was even ten o’clock.

i want to rip off your panties and go down on you until you need to change the sheets. i want to fuck you hard, and laugh at how loud we are, because all of your neighbors would be able to hear. i want you to bite me hard enough to leave a mark, because i’m yours, and i want everyone to know that it’s a fact.

but you’re in bed, feeling sick. so i made you a mix, instead.

she could never get in the mood if there wasn’t music. it didn’t matter what it was, save for country or rap, she just needed music. it could be beethoven’s fifth or closer by nine inch nails or even black cow by steely dan. the music would flow through her veins and bring her blood rushing to that glorious spot between her legs. she would pulse to the rhythm of it, sway in its melody. she would come when a song reached its own climax, a beautiful symbiosis between them.

he was always far more calculating. methodical. to a fault. he needed the right music, and it changed every time. he didn’t have the same relationship to it that she did. he would spend too long trying to match his mood, his colour. the desire would be gone from both of them by the time he chose. the shame would set in and he would feel worthless. but occasionally, he would find just the right song, just at the right moment. the two of them would intertwine, thrusting and clawing, lost in the grandness of the sound.

or sexually assaulted. or abused. or damaged in some irrevocable way.

but, mostly, raped. including myself.

i have been thinking about this a lot, lately. we are all different sorts of people. we have different tastes and different talents (though i would venture to say we tend to be creative individuals, in some field or another).
some of us were born at different times, grew up in different places, and live in different cities. we were kids when it happened, or teenagers, or adults. it happened to some of us more than once.

do we gravitate, intentionally, toward victims of situations similar to our own? is there a collective subconscious force that draws us together? or is it simply coincidence? do we just happen to find one another, support each other, and learn, together, how to overcome the terrors of what has been done to us?

quite literally.

i just scoured through over four years of my life, sprawled out across the pages of facebook: in status updates and posts on friends’ walls and comments on pictures…and i deleted every trace of you. you don’t exist in any easily discoverable sense.

every step i take toward a live devoid of you is worth celebrating.

you really need to leave me alone.

i know that when i dream of you, you’re really inside my head, and i need you to get out.

this may be the cruelest thing i’ve ever said: i don’t want to remember you.

i don’t want to have dreams where i’m sneaking around in a modified version of your room, finding all of your sex toys (the real ones that i bought you) while looking for something that’s truly mine. but i don’t know what i’m looking for, and i can hear you in the shower in the bathroom through the hallway and i’m terrified that you’re going to come in and find me rooting through your things. i’m not looking for the cats; they’re not present in this dream-reality. maybe i’m looking for my dignity? it’s hard to say. but whatever it is, i don’t find it, and i wake up, preoccupied with thoughts of you that linger and leave ashes on my tongue.

you are a truly terribly person. you damaged me nearly beyond repair. you sucked all of the goodness from me, and when i had none left to give, you dangled me along with the thinnest string of hope, and drained that hope from me. you made me feel worthless, even to you, but dug it into me with bloody fingers that i had to stay with you; because, truly, i wasn’t worthless. you needed me. i gave you everything; something you knew no one else would do. i was too malleable; too willing to be crushed; too desperate to be loved. i gave you exactly what you needed: a bitch of a lover who was too afraid to stand up to you, who would do anything to make you happy, and who would never leave you for fear of never being loved by anyone else.

i was pathetic.

but now?

i look at you, found by a friend on a dom/sub website, trying to be a financial dominatrix, trying to do, essentially, what you did to me from this time last year until the spring, and i see that you are pathetic. you are a faker. you are one manipulation piled on another, wrapped in a facade, and despised by all who truly know what lies underneath. you are unlovable by anyone who is not equally damaged, and you will never change, because you are so stubborn that you find yourself correct in all situations, according to you.

so get out of my head. i have nothing more for you. you are not welcome here.

sometimes i worry that i’m too queer to have a girlfriend. that i’m too much of a girl.

sometimes i worry that i’m not enough of a girl for you, because sometimes i worry that you like girls more.

sometimes i worry that my penis is too small or i don’t know how to use it, because i never wanted it; because i would rather have a vagina.

sometimes i worry that i’m being too hetero-normative when i worry, despite how queer i feel.

sometimes i worry that all the bad things that have happened to me are too much for someone else to bear, being in a relationship with me.

sometimes i worry that my dreams are real, and that i’m still stuck with that horrible woman whose name i won’t even use anymore.

sometimes i worry that she tainted me forever.

sometimes i forget to worry and i look at you, and everything is ok.

it was prefaced by something i can’t remember. but this is where it started to get bad.

she looked at me with the utmost disdain and asked, “what’s wrong with you?”

i sat down on the bed and curled up into the smallest ball that i could. “i…i saw my rapist on the train today. i had found her on facebook a few weeks ago, and she kind of apologized to me…which was weird…it didn’t really make me feel better, but i guess it made her seem like more of a person than an event. but-“

“how did you find her on facebook?”

“i was looking for naomi…your friend who came and stayed with us last year.”

“why the fuck were you looking for her?”

“i was curious about how she was doing. she did get extremely drunk and piss on our floor and puke all over us and then you renounced her friendship and kicked her out when she disrespected me.”

she started pacing back and forth in front of me. “why would you want to talk to her?”

“i didn’t. i just wanted to see if she was doing alright.”

“whatever. don’t try to talk to her. she was my friend, not yours. i don’t want you talking to her.”

“jesus. fine. ok. whatever. the girl who raped me is named naomi, and i guess we had a friend in common, so when i started to type in the name, she came up. and my morbid curiosity got the best of me.”

“you’re a fucking idiot.” she laughed when she said it.

“thanks. i appreciate your fucking sympathy.”

“well, what do you want me to say?”

“i don’t know!? maybe something like ‘i’m sorry you had a panic attack when you saw the girl who RAPED YOU on the train. i’m sorry i wasn’t there to hold your hand and make you feel better. i’m sorry i’m being a FUCKING ASSHOLE right now instead of asking what i can do to help you.’”

and then the yelling began.

she threw her arms up in the air, rolling her eyes and over-dramatically, mockingly apologized. “oh god. i’m sorry you’re such a fucking pussy that you can’t deal with seeing some broad you fucked when you were 15. you need to man the fuck up if you want me to take you seriously and stay with you.”

“are you fucking kidding me?! what the fuck is wrong with you? i’m having a panic attack and you’re telling me to ‘man up?’ and she isn’t ‘some broad i fucked,’ she raped me. do you have any respect for me? at all?”

“do you have any respect for me? do you know how much weight you’ve gained? why do you think we’re not having sex? you’re not my type when you look like that.”

“what. the fuck. what?”

“you’ve gained a bunch of weight. and i don’t find you attractive when you look fat.” she paused and looked around while i sat, stunned, wondering who the fuck i was talking to. “you know that every five pounds you gain, you lose a half inch of the length of your dick, right?”

“what the fuck is wrong with you?! you don’t say shit like that to someone who has had eating disorders, while they’re in the middle of a nervous fucking breakdown. OR AT ALL. EVER.”

“i can say whatever i want to you.”

as quietly as i could, i spat, “no, you can’t. if you have any respect for me at all, if you love me at all, you’ll stop.”

she didn’t stop. she kept drilling into me. i started bawling at some point and didn’t stop for about two hours. i tried to sleep on the couch that night, but she wouldn’t let me. as soon as i came to bed, she stubbornly relocated herself to the couch, as if it would prove something. the next morning brought no apology from her…just more venom and bile, meant to break me down and force me to submit to her will. she threatened to end things, but my desperation kept me clinging to her. i pleaded with her to give me time to change, to be better, not acknowledging that the change needed to occur in her. her stubbornness to compromise and grow intertwined with my stubbornness to allow her to assume any blame for her wrong-doings and dragged us deeper into our own hell.

“love is suicide”