Emotionless Instruction Needed

Disclaimer **The following post may be triggering for some people**


I sat there, on that traction table, legs propped, staring at the plastered ceiling, the strewn curtain, the fire sprinkler, and the bright white staggered lights. I stared until that curtain began to close from behind. Those same lights now only one bulb, shadowing over my body.

And then my body slowly slid down onto the table -- fixated at the sounds of my increasing heart, drowning out the breaths I was trying to take.

Relax . . . that's what you'll need to do, so that this goes well, she said. Or was it him, telling me from before? Relax.

All I can hear is pounding. Is it my head? My heart? Or my lungs, as I try and scream? Are the sounds producing anything recognizable?

Just relax, is all I hear. I tighten up, as I am told to just relax. Was I too relaxed when I drank? Too relaxed when I partied with a crowd of unknowns? Or too relaxed, as I lied down on a couch, waiting to sleep off my night, waking up to find so many things missing?

I can't seem to recall much, but feeling. And whose feeling is this? Whose feeling did this? Two shadows, standing, and lying beside me. Splayed in a half couch, half floor position, I see them. But where am I? Was I too relaxed to move? To roll off the couch, and walk away?

And why won't this screaming stop? Where were you when I needed to scream, as I felt everything important being ripped from me? Where was that loud, beating heart? Where were the words, that blared over, just relax?

Where did it all go? My scream -- my voice -- my laugh -- my security? And why had I not held closer? Relax, echoes, but it doesn't sound like me.

Imagine/Answers

Where do you runnaway to, when there is no way to get there?
How do you justify moments when being with someone, makes you feel more alone then when you're alone?
When can you determine enough is enough? And that it's time to snap out of it?
How can you smile, showing the most pleasure pleasing, gratifying greeting, when you are screaming inside?
And do you even remember that sound?  The scream -- one held in for so long, like your voice, it trembles, as it fights to be heard.
Where does fight or flight kick in to just living?
When can a group of people laughing, not feel like distant chatter, thrusted into your space?
And why is it calm at night, when no one is around, that you feel safe and heard?

Does closeness mean happiness? Because by standards, if it does, then you are one miserable human being.
Does inner turmoil mean you aren't normal?  Or that you are insane?
Because if it does, why would that be okay to show?

Have you ever imagined peace, serenity, adoration, and a slow hug that actually gave comfort instead of cringing?

Or a white space, filled with cool rain, and penetrating sun rays -- holding you ever so close, but not infringing on your beating heart?

Why is falling so freeing? But standing still cuts?  Though every moment changes.
It creates displacement -- uncertainty -- numbness, yet bouts of life.

Your life. Have you lived? Do you even want to?  Or would it even matter, if your split decision changed after permanently deciding?

Have you loved?  Can you even?  How could you, when you can't find the attraction within?  When your own feeling makes you palpitate, do you hold your breath, close your eyes, and wait?

Wait for life to change, or for your mind to say it's okay?

It's okay to not know.  To not know the answers.  To not know why you're even feeling bombarded.  Or why no one seems to know.  It's okay to hold onto your heart.  To yourself.  Even if there are broken pieces.  Hold onto them.  To yourself.

Love. Even when you feel no one can or will love you.  Love.  Love your fight.  Love your light, even while dimming.  Love yourself.

T minus June 30, 2008, but now

T minus June 30, 2008, but now

The war was isolation
Contemplation, yet inward retaliation
I trapped my tears inside, where I left my screams to hide
I walked, talked, and dreamed of a way out
That same year, I tried for my way out

Nothing came, but a day of pain
And yet, I couldn't remember the names
Faces so mashed, but a taste so potent
The fact that I hadn't yet awoken
Blurred movements, intertwined with clarity

I tried, and yet failed
Something stopped
So much so, my perfectionism hadn't lead me to the drop
Dark is where I was
I was one with the blurred moments

There was forced understanding
Blaming, and second guessing
Focus on strategic placements
And loathing for my staying
One sticky eyelid drop, sleep would make it all stop

But it never did

There still lies a war with isolation
Contemplation, yet inward retaliation
I trap my tears inside, where I leave all my screams and hide
I walk, talk, and dream of a way out
This eighth year, I didn't try for my way out

I constantly wish for clarity
Although photos wouldn't help me
Feeling, it's what removes me
Back to memories, moments and movements, where I don't want to be
One day I'll see, where I can walk, talk and dream of a peace with me

Loss of feeling

Trust your instincts, they say.  Fight harder, they say.  Pray and let go, they say . . .

As I sat, eagle focused on the screen, I watched The Hunting Ground documentary, silently and alone.  I watched because I needed to.  I listened to the survivors and wondered why I hadn't been that brave.  Why I couldn't speak up as much as others.  And I remembered that I had tried one year.  "Take Back The Night" on my undergraduate campus . . . one year I had tried.  I decided to volunteer and pass out flyers and pamphlets for the event.  I did well, up until the actual date.  I just couldn't show up for the date.  Something inside me felt like a fraud.  Like I was somehow telling people to be brave and fight the urge to be silenced, and yet I was doing that very thing.  I was indeed silent.

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I need to breathe.  Or not to.  Sometimes I can't decide.  It's though my mind doesn't understand.

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Take a deep breath, and open your eyes.  I know it's hard to trust guys.  In time you'll be open enough to love.  Or be loved.  They tell you it gets better with time.  And yet you're still searching for that moment where your life falls into place.  You take a breath, and forget to exhale.  Maybe for a second -- you can feel normal.  Do you even know what that feels like?  Take a deep breath and keep your eyes closed.  Either way your dreams merge into a shattered reality.  The reality is there are feelings that you never have been able to shake.  From a young child up until now . . . Moments that have been etched so deep into your body, though you try to scrape them out, you just can't.  And you try.  Marks become just another part of the journey.  Children pound their fists and heads into the wall, in an attempt to forget.  The dizziness overshadows the day-nightmares.  And the older you get, the punishment gets angrier.  Like the slashes used to feel -- you dig until you're numb enough to close your eyes.

********************************************************************************

I isolate myself when it gets to be too much.  Nothing is worse than having those you love, hurt.  But what happens when you hate the person staring back at you?  What do you do when you've been hating yourself since you were a young child?  How do you fight the urge to disappear, when you've never felt visible?

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It's hard to admit hurt, but easy to inflict it upon yourself. And there are moments where handling reality becomes too much, and breathing doesn't feel like an option.  Letting go makes more sense -- especially when you feel lost.  And those times frequent more than you'd like.  

I forgot to function the other day/ While laughing at myself, I reflected back to you/
That stare/ Those eyes/ That face/ Ingrained so deep shutting eyelids scratched you further into my mind/

Patterned Fascades

There's so much going on these days.  And yet there's so much to get done.  You'd think that with all this time left from getting rid of a job that wasn't building my future, but basically killing my lungs, I'd have at least written a few promising destruction stories or at least some emo driven sounding anthems to pass the time.  Given only a few weeks have passed since leaving my last job, which I totally worked for one year -- it stems the reason I should be celebrating the passing of those long, 60+ work hours and enjoying some respected freedom, I have been lethargic to be blunt.  And the only amount of time I've been able to subject myself to writing, has been "Happy Birthday" Facebook posts to people I haven't spoken to in quite some time.  Not that I hadn't wanted to reach out to them, but I've been "busy."  Truly busy -- trying not to jump from imaginary ledges, daily, which you can see can distract you from social media fascination.

I've patterned myself, now, to becoming more so what I had envisioned before.  You know?  When I was on a path towards doing something great with my life.  Before I had to buckle down and latch onto a job with benefits, in order to join the adult world of graduated persons.  The world where bills build up so high, you cannot see the dreams that you once gravitated towards.  I had to sell out and take a job that I knew would not build my resume the way I wanted, but just add another few lines of experience.  I worked another job, and eventually grew so tired I didn't have any time left to devote to writing.  No  time for passion.  No time for relaxation.  No time to do what I initially went to school for years and years to do.  And those same years where I grew financial aid debt and knew I'd have to pay back . . . Interesting how you go through debt to study in a field where after graduation it becomes increasingly difficult to live normally in the "real world," and you inherently turn to other realms of work in order to pay back those same loans.  But I still wouldn't trade those years of university for anything.  I know it takes many years to pay back those loans.  More years than it took me to get through schooling -- from pre-K through Graduate school.

But, today starts a new day.  A new adventure if you will.  A time to go back to what really matters.  What mattered all the time, and yet I was too scared to fail that I went and reached for something that didn't give me any happiness.  Only disdain toward my own self.  I reject the pass jobs that never helped me build as an artist.   I long for the purpose, again.  And I begin anew.  I long for more stories.  Not just out of frustration.  But because there's no other way, but to write.  I long for reaching my goals and dreams.  I long for not wanting to leap from ledges in order to find peace . . . I long for becoming who I know I'm suppose to be.  And I need not to just long, but instead go after what I want.

Though it's frightening to jump without knowledge of how you might land.  It's even more scary to continue on a path of uncertainty in something that slowly and constantly takes from you.  Leaving you with nothing left.

It took a year to break the walls of artistic imprisonment, but now that I'm free -- I'm not going back.  I'm branching into a direction that will take guts, courage and lots of alcohol (just a little writers humor -- I'm straight edge, dudes).  I'm going after my own life and career, without a safety net.  Standing on the edge and waiting to catch the wind to carry me over.  But gladly approaching uncertainty and pushing with my heart this time.  And not my school debt.

Sensory at its best . . .

Wonderful things happen when a hiatus occurs.  Right?  Well, that quite possibly could be one way to look at it.  I mean, how else could I fathom an excuse of not being online for such a long time?  Perhaps I was trying to gather my thoughts, in an attempt to create the BEST POST EVER . . . Maybe it was because I was doing ample research for a new opportunity that just caused me to ponder . . . Whatever it has been, has indeed made the thoughts forcefully purge themselves into a new blog.  So, I guess those absent days were worth it.

It has been almost one year since my last blog post.  I've written new material.  I've even managed to get a few songs posted on my YouTube site.  And yet, it is only now that I've sat down and written a few words to my literary community.  Shocking!

As I sit at this library desktop, listening to myself play "Revising The Days"  (shamelessly promoting myself), I become intrigued at what I've put myself through -- in regards to my writing.  These past few months have been a transition, both geographically, job wise and everything that goes along with it.  But I've stayed positive through it all.  I tell myself, just what I told you all:  those absent days at what I initially LOVE, have been worth it; it will work out in the long run; I just have to persevere; I'm destined for much more than what I'm currently attached to; and that there's only so many more weeks/months until I'm right where I need to be.

Funny that that could have been my mentality post high school, undergrad or even post grad.  And yet months later from that, I sit here, thinking about my future.  Thinking of where I want.  No, NEED to be.  And how long it will take me to get there.  Patience.  That's where I stand right now.  I stand on the preparation side of things, waiting until it lines up.  And although I understand that things don't always go according to plan (I've learned from quite the experiences), I plan anyway.

So, that's what I'm doing, in order to make myself feel better about not going all out on my dreams.  About not posting enough music videos on my YouTube account.  About not posting more blogs on this site.  And about not getting to my ideal destination fast enough.  I plan.  And one day, I'll be blogging from where my plans have met up.

But until then . . . that's what's going on. 

Wait, you're a writer? Why? What makes you so different?

It's been some time since I posted on this Blog (hey, I'm still a writer.  Just working on other projects), but one of my dear Lesley cohorts/buddies posted a call to other writers on their writing experiences in the form of a blog.  Sorry it took some time to upload, once I accepted the challenge, but here it is.  And thanks Sabrina Fedel, Destination Providence (check out her blog) for the call.  Well, I'm going to start with the questions (below) and let you dive in to my answers.


1. What am I working on?

At this time I am currently working on a few projects:  I have two stage plays, two screenplays (a short and a full), and I am working on a musical.  I have also been working on something for the web . . . It's a lot of plates spinning in the air at once (pardon the overused phrase), but that's what keeps me motivated -- having plans -- so many plans where I have to give more than 110% at a time.  

So, that's the literary side of my projects, but I also am working on new music and compositions, because not only do I love to write, but I love music too.  And merging those two into my projects just seems fitting and natural.  


2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?


My work differs from other material in the same genre, because, well, it's mine.  Everybody draws some inspiration from other artists, whether it's music helping the writer focus on a plot, character or scene; whether it's taking personal experiences and writing those lives; or just writing what we want and how we want it.  Either way, we all take from something, in order to create something new.  But what makes my writing (mostly dramatic) different from what is already out there?  I'd say it's my want to tell stories I haven't yet seen.  Stories of people who sometimes never are discussed, or not fully.  Many of my characters are relevant, but when you've seen some of those characteristics in other media (play, film, etc), there tends to be either more grit than sympathy for the people, or too much and not enough understanding of their beginning leading to why they are that way.  

I also tend to write many scripts where there is a major focus on women.  Not that I haven't made plays with dominating male characters, but for the most part I like giving women characters a chance to speak.  

More importantly what makes my writing different is that it is told by me.  As bland as that answer is, it's true.  I write what I know, and what I've learned.  I write who I know.  Who I've witnessed.  Who needs to be heard.  And from where their stories should be told.  I've written many plays with young characters, because those are also voices that need to be listened to.  And without hearing those young characters, sometimes feeling silenced, you'd never see the growth in them -- and ultimately if silenced, that stifles them from changing for the good.  And isn't that really what we want our characters to do?  Change for the good?  Even if only for the action in the play.


3. Why do I write what I do?

Again, I write what I do, because I love what I write!  From music to screenplays to stage plays, it's all part of what makes me, me.  And I tend to write in more dramatic tone, because I've learned the hardest stories that you might not want to tell, are the ones that need to be told the most.  And because everyone has a story within them, we shouldn't just go for the positive ones, but tackle the deep issues and shed light to the stories hidden within.  Every character is flawed.  Every person is flawed.  And because of that, there are many stories to write.  And with each day I find more material to layer another story.  I write in a way that can speak for those who haven't yet found their voices.  

I've written material that I've (in the past) even been afraid to discuss.  And that's what makes it amazing.  Being able to delve so far that the dialogue happens.  And when it does, it's worth the writing.  

But ultimately I write because I cannot imagine myself doing anything other than reaching people through stories.  I consider myself an artist; a performer; an entertainer if you will.  And that is because I write to put the audience in a place where they are transformed into an experience only I can give them.  I write because there are way too many stories untold.  And I want happier endings, even if it's just on the page.


4. How does my writing process work?

My writing process works in such an all-over-the-place-yet-focused-way.  By that I mean, like many writers, I can write at any moment.  If an idea comes, no matter when, I have to write it down, type it up, or voice memo it.  When it's an idea from a dream (which has happened plenty of times), I wake up and quickly write what I visioned, and go from there. 

It can also be a song that gives me such an emotion that I know exactly how a character should be formed.  And when that's the case, I tend to put together a music playlist of songs that help me write, which sticks with me throughout the entire writing process.  

I've done storyboards, index cards, notes on Word, tape up sticky notes -- it all works for different reasons, and different ideas.  But with each various one, it's all about the focus.  Once I have an idea, and know that character, then I can start writing their story.  After a while it's me becoming them for the time being: thinking like the character; knowing what they would do, sort of like an actor preparing for an audition.  Once I'm in the mix of writing the story, then it's hard to get me out.

My writing process is full of many ideas, rewrites, tossing pages, going back to the beginning of an idea and rethinking, and reshaping the core -- which like other writers I know can be tough.  Because once I have a solid idea, which I love, it's hard to let go.  But again, I have to think about why I write.  Because it's not just about me.  It's about those stories that need to be told.  And however long the writing process may take (unless there are deadlines, which seem to be the case quite often), I must stay focused and write.  

Did I mention that I sort of have an obsession with coffee and coffee houses when I'm struck with the writers moment?  Well, that's another part of my process.  I've learned from the best in many of my writing courses, that when you are being held accountable for your writing, you work better.  So, when I know I have a deadline (by others or myself), I lock myself away in a room with my headphones and music, books, notes, and a laptop set to Final Draft, and write.  And when I'm in the coffee shop, I do the same -- even if it's in public, I find myself a corner spot, headphones, books, notes, laptop set to Final Draft and I immerse myself in the story -- forgetting I'm still in public.  There have been many nights where I have stayed in said coffee shop until they were closing, only to pack up and head home for more writing, because I was still in the zone.

Most writers are probable aware with how difficult it could be to get in that writers moment.  But once you're there, you don't want to stop. 
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Besides myself, there are plenty of other awesome literary people (also fellow Lesley University MFA Creative Writing cohorts), so please check out their blogs:

Michael Anthony, A Veteran’s Perspective…
Alexis Marie Writes
Cynthia Platt, Scribbling in the Garret