October 29, 2010
Confessions of a Tischaholic -3- Love and Bellyaches
Ultimately, we're all plagiarists at heart.
Love and Bellyaches
She was once again restless, preoccupied with the whims born out of an idle imagination. In the absence of paints and clay, her hands were swollen with the grave desire to wash themselves with blood drenched in crime—like any artist with no art form, she had become dangerous. If only it weren’t for that goddamned gaping hole in her world, she could at least ponder something, anything, to engage her tremendous curiosity and her gift for metaphor; and forget momentarily her craving for the other half of her equation.
A new September was timidly forcing its presence on Manhattan’s street-lining trees; and as always, it brought her leaves along with distance; a distance which seemed to stretch on infinitely, marking the scathing emptiness of that un-holiest of holes—the one occupying the place where he used to be. It was this hole that she found herself constantly tiptoeing about in the daytime, and falling into sometime around midnight. It always started around midnight. Every night, as the city sun fell over her and New York fell into discord, she’d lose herself for a minute or two, in books soaked with words bragging about sober moments in which some witty fool had rewrote time. And then, like some foolish wit lost in the haze of words, she’d try to humor herself into believing she could plagiarize thought and create alternate realities. Her mind—infiltrated with a rush of feral waves of perfume-scented, candle-lit memories—would ameliorate her ability to envision herself traveling back, and traveling abroad to the lands of eternal bliss. Yet even in those desperate moments when she would temporarily forget the world she was long forgotten by, she couldn’t quite comprehend why she thought they could have been happy together, if only they’d moved abroad? A change of environment, she knew, was the traditional fallacy upon which doomed loves, and lungs, relied. And as her imagination stumbled over the banal details which interrupted every journey—experienced in body or soul—the two perfect circles of the curl of their entwined bodies would come undone. Her oxygen-deprived, scorching lungs would indeed scream as she’d start to drown, alone, in the web of solitary years grown long, patience grown short. And as she’d struggle upwards to free herself from the murky waters of her absurd history, she’d see every one of those failed years; years that had each gone by exactly like the last. They would stream right past her like credits on a screen, pronouncing his memory as it blazed through her, burning not just her lungs, but everything in her being.
Allowing her fiery passion to consume her, she would close her eyes, plagued by the pictures stained on her eyelids. Knowing that suicide was her only alibi, she would tell herself that it was time to start her descent. And so her thrashing limbs would quiet down, a serene calmness settling over her trembling body, as she surrendered herself and died in the grief of the voice which told her: “I love your hands.”
She would plant her hands in the garden, and they would grow—she knew it would be so. As the sun rose over the skyscrapers, the city landscape coming into view, her sweaty skin let her know that she had to grow her hands, so that swallows could lay eggs in the hollow of her ink-stained hands. She knew that another birth was near. As she started to repeat to herself the things that she always said to make herself feel good again, a string of: “I’ll speak, I’ll write, I’ll laugh, I’ll lie”; she was certain that the worst had come to pass for another season. She would again grow her hands, laugh as she lied, spoke as she wrote; and all the while swallows would once again lay eggs in the hollow of her love-stained heart.
Key
“Love and Bellyaches,” expression coined during a great night by a very sick Harley Prechtel-Cortez of Red Cortez, Oct. 23, 2009.
Toni Morrison, Sula:
In a way, her strangeness, her naïveté, her craving for the other half of her equation was the consequence of an idle imagination. Had she paints, or clay, or knew the discipline of the dance, or strings; had she anything to engage her tremendous curiosity and her gift for metaphor, she might have exchanged the restlessness and preoccupation with whim for an activity that provided her with all she yearned for, And like any artist with no art form, she became dangerous.
Forough Farrokhzad, Another Birth (poem: Earthly Verses)
People
the fallen masses of people
heartsick, broken, stunned,
dragged their ill-omened carcasses
from one alienation to another
and the grave will to kill
swelled in their hands.
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Letters of Edna St. Vincent Millay:
Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.
Native, Wrestling Moves
September brought leaves and distance. (song: Five Year Payoff)
Our years grow long; our patience short / At nightfall the city brings discord. (song: Backseat Crew)
Books soaked with the words describing the nights that we rewrote time. (song: Ponyboy)
We plagiarize thinking. (song: Shirts and Skins)
P.J. Harvey ft. Thom Yorke, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
And you must leave now, before the sun rises, over the skyscrapers, and the city landscape comes into view, sweat on my skin / The city sun set over me (song: This Mess We’re In)
The Airborne Toxic Event, The Airborne Toxic Event
And it starts sometime around midnight, or at least that’s when you lose yourself for a minute or two. / And so there’s a change in your emotions when all these memories come rushing like feral waves to your mind: of the curl of your bodies like two perfect circles entwined. (song: Sometime Around Midnight)
And my closet is filled with all these endless accoutrements: these shoes, these scarves, these shirts, these ties, and these things I say to make myself feel good again, “I’ll speak. I’ll write. I’ll laugh. I’ll lie.” (song: This Is Nowhere)
Now these years have seen so many imitations turning green. Each like the last, they go right past like credits on a screen, with your memory blazing through me, burning everything. (song: Gasoline)
You thought suicide was an alibi (Wishing Well)
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night:
Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.
Alexander Pope, Eloisa to Abelard:
How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d.
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita:
Why did I hope we would be happy abroad? A change of environment is the traditional fallacy upon which doomed loves, and lungs, rely.
Forough Farrokhzad, Another Birth (poem: Another Birth)
Ah
This is my lot
This is my lot
My lot is
A sky which is taken away at the drop of a curtain
My lot is going down a flight of disused stairs
And regaining something amid putrefaction and nostalgia
My lot is a sad promenade in the garden of memories
And dying in the grief of a voice which tells me
“I love your hands.”
I will grow my hands in the garden
I will grow, I know I know I know
and swallows will lay eggs
in the hollow of my ink-stained hands
I shall wear a pair of twin cherries as earrings
and I shall put dahlia petals on my fingernails…
Labels: narcissism, nyc, school
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