From 8/23/08, "Still out of work"

Beauty is a farce narrated under the pretense of accessibility. Its conflicts well up emotion so full that the body is forced to rely on tears, voiding the self to the lees. I am puppeteered by some preternatural instinct to flush away sadness, despair, hatred, dissension through a salty thread unraveling down my cheek, over my shoulder, and down my back. I rest my head in my own polluted well.

An anxiety is growing, and rooted so deeply that now I cannot even escape torrid jealousy and rage in my sleep. This is the blackest day among many. I'm hold up somewhere in a city that hates me, that cannot stand the sight of me, that promises me the world then rapes my naivety. I can feel sadness settling cavernously within my heart like a nest of spiders, waiting to be disturbed so that they can invade and overtake my being--weighing down my arms, my legs, my eyelids so that I can neither move or wake.

I envision that someday my precious razors will turn on me, the inevitable cause of my death. The hot, soothing draw of the blade will open my wrists, separating so precisely the flesh, and sighing a great flood of relief. Pouring down my fingertips to the floor. And I will forgive that blade its iniquities, as it cannot understand how it was once searching for a sweet, simple taste of mortality, but caused death--"dead now. Dead later. Dead infinitum." (Caroline Kettlewell)

All this, as well as trying to rationalize myself into thinking that I'm not exactly like M; a creature so unambitious so unequivocally God-fearing. So simple and trite, so timid and agoraphobic is but the mere consistency of my inner-most core. The cause of the bitter taste in my mouth and the well-spring of blood that runs through my veins. It is because of the overbearing and protective nature that allots M endless worry, therefore leaving me without.

I let no one in or anyone out. I waste my time worshiping the idolatry of monogamy, creating fictitious relationships in my head in a hopeless mirage of Zeffirelli's bedroom scene in "Romeo and Juliet." Two hearts, one beat. Two eyes, one look. Two lips, one kiss. A busted Dalian image. A perverse arrangement of fragmented mirror, a dangerous distortion of the meaningless suddenly becoming relevant.

"...Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow. Never expect to outgrow loneliness. Never hope to find people who will understand you, someone to fill that space. An intelligent, sensitive person is the exception, the very great exception. If you expect to find people who will understand you, you will grow murderous with disappointment. The best you'll ever do is to understand yourself, know what it is that you want, and not let the cattle stand in your way." (Janet Fitch)

And it's the painful and obvious realization that loneliness is the human condition that makes my mind wander toward fantasy. It was what deluded me after my encounter with G. It's what still pulses through my veins at mention of his name. The fantasy that he is untouchable by every other, that his love for me is something historical, is laughable and detestable. Both humiliating and unilluminated. To think that any man might go out of his way to care about me is simply a stale cosmic joke that life repeats seven nights a week--I'm here all month, try the veal!

Desperation is maddening. It's the pink gum stuck to my shoe in the middle of the hottest day of the year. No matter how hard I scrape, blobs of pinkblack good nestle into the crevices, tacking my heel to the pavement...grimly obvious to passersby. Desperation glows about the face, haloing the sick desires that cradle loneliness. Will I cry myself to sleep tonight? Will I cry? Will I toss during a sleepless night so that I can rightfully claim the black eyes and drooped lids? To brandish humiliation about the face is the essence of desperation. These meticulous wounds such a miracle savior for all the world to see.

"Despair [isn't] a quest, you didn't play its favorite music, find it a comfortable chair. Despair [is] the enemy." (Ibid)