Bricks and Feathers

How does one just fall in love?

Is love truly a hole that one trips and stumbles into? While on a lovely walk through the forest of life, does one misstep lead to a rumbling of the ground, a sliding of leaves and branches and suddenly one finds oneself at the bottom of a hole with no way out? The sun's shining in the hole, true, and it's a gorgeous day-- but nevertheless, one is stuck in that hole for, well, forever?

I believe that this is incorrect. With love one is not always aware that one has fallen into it. If one has fallen into a hole it is immediately apparent, and if it is not then one should get one's eyesight and mental functions checked at the earliest convenience.

I propose, then, that love falls on us, though it is not always a ton of bricks falling upon one's head. Oft' love trickles so gently and so subtly into one's heart like a mild summer rain that one doesn't notice that one is in love (or wet) until someone else points it out. "Excuse me sir, but are you in love?" "No, miss, I-- Oh god, I think I am!"

Perhaps love is instead like a predator. Rain and holes are both mostly pleasant metaphors for a very often unpleasant thing. Love can hunt one down and strike when one least expects it-- coming from behind while one's trousers are down and one is half-asleep on the edge of a campsite in the dead of night. Or while picking flowers in a deserted meadow, and love bites one on the foot like a deranged natural ant. Love floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee, indeed.

Is it not, then, safe to assume that no one is safe from love? For while one may hope to avoid rain or holes or predators in one's life, and with careful, cautious living may actually triumph over one of these obstacles, the simple fact of life is that one cannot avoid rain and holes and predators. While walking in a field one may find a path devoid of holes, and so may avoid these. But on the path a predator comes along, and so one scurries up the nearest tree to avoid. Assuming this is a lazy predator with no inclination to climb trees then one is safe. While safe from both holes and predators high up in that tree, one may be certain of one thing: when it rains, you'll be the first to know.

BBC

What's with all pretense? Honesty was so easy to take hold of but it seems to slip away, and I can't make sense of the way people change. Why turn back to doubt and discontent when you have truth right in front of you? Linked finger to finger, hook to hook; held together by all that is right and some of what's wrong, what's the point of nonsense? Tell me your truth and I'll tell you mine. No more "just" or "I guess" or "maybe, baby". Open your mouth and let the truth fly out and I can't blame you, I can't forgive you (there's nothing to forgive, don't you fucking see?)

Upside and inside out, and we're here-- this is life, it's school and a job and day to day and hour by hour and homework and studying and texting and numbing, and wondering "Now that I'm here, what the fuck was all the hype about?" It's driving home from work and realizing that the sun is out and it's fucking gorgeous, and that splendor lies in solitude and solitude in splendor, and that if you never submit your poems how will they be published? It's Smoky Man's despair and realizing he's just like you (he's so much like you it hurts, and you almost fall in love) and when you see his transparent power and his fearful power, and his power borne from fear you lose it, just a little.

It's laundry and laundry and more fucking laundry-- doesn't anyone else ever fucking do the fucking laundry? I mean, not that I'm complaining, because I'd rather do the laundry than do the bloody dishes but still, you dirty-clothed bastards. It's the constant counting up of money and income, counting and recounting and checking these numbers because this is my money, my paycheck, my fucking life and no one else is gonna do it, y'know?

It's debate about everything, and I'm so ready to fight: for my rights as a Mexican-American, for my rights as a woman, for my rights as a lover of women. For my rights as a human being. It's writing and finding time to spend with people, and garnering that motivation to finish my fucking homework after work and school, and my license test on Friday-- it's buying my own damn car because I don't get things like that handed to me, I don't get anything handed to me anymore. It's choosing my education over money and fear, and fears about money.

It's making plans and realizing that while my parents give good advice they don't have to agree with what I do, and I don't need their approval. It's moving out by my next birthday and living in a city I've been to once, maybe twice by that time; but I want to and that's enough, that's all, that's IT.

Downs, and Inevitable Ups

Lemme tell you something, faceless Internet: I've been there. I've had my ups and downs like y'all. And, lemme tell ya something else: you think that it never gets better. Really. You sit there, morose and brooding, like a tiny sliver of insanity and truth (because they're the same; who can deny it?) and you see through all these lies people feed themselves about love and life and happiness. And you know for a fact that it doesn't exist. And it's not some suicidal, Hell-but-no-Heaven thing. It's just matter of fact.

But buck up, bitches. Because this shit does get better. You'll meet someone who pulls you out of that rut and makes you feel like a fucking human again. And once you do, don't let them go. Be honest. Excruciatingly so. Take chances. Don't make the same mistakes you made before. Talk about your feelings, even if it's terrifying-- if I can do it successfully, so can you. Shower together. Try things you've never done before, and not just sexual things. Anything at all. Even if you two don't make it forever (and let's fucking face it: who does?) you'll have checked a lot off of your bucket list, and gotten laid a lot. Heartbreak's worth this.

Maybe you'll be one of the lucky ones who pulls themselves out of a rut, in which case I congratulate you. You're admirable indeed; a force to be reckoned with. Kudos to you, and your new found motivation in life. I don't have much to say to you, because if you're in this category you're better than me, to be sure.

In any case, don't merely exist; live. Don't settle for less than what you've dreamed of; there's plenty of time for that when we're old and decrepit. Don't let happiness slip away because you're too busy feeling sorry for yourself. Yeah, life's shit sometimes but you deserve better than this. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to have your great days outweigh your not-so-great ones. You deserve to understand what all those damn songs are about. You deserve love.

Want

I guess the thing is that I want someone like you to love me. I want you to love me. I want to be the girl you come home for and stay up at night thinking about and are reminded of at every turn. I want you to want to take me out and fuck me and make me dinner and kiss me good night and tell me you love me.

I want and want and want and want and want and want.

I want to see you in love as a bystander. I want to know what you look like when that special someone texts you. I want to know the furrow of your brow as you say "I love you."

I have no real words for the things I want where you're involved.

StillAlive

We make so many excuses for ourselves. I can't write anymore, and who do I blame it on? Maybe he intimidates me, in that aspect too-- So it's your fault. I hope you're happy.

Thanksgiving is coming and it's gonna be big.

Rant

You'd think with all the time spent phrasing and rephrasing these thoughts in my head that I'd be able to say it when it mattered, right? But your heart skips a beat, maybe, and so did mine-- my palms start to sweat and gods, you're not even here. This makes too much sense to be real.

We kid ourselves, so much. Not just you and I, dear, but everyone. Like with movies, and music. There are stages in this. When we're kids we believe in love and magic and cooties, things that don't need proof, things with which words are enough. We grow up a little, we become tadpoles with legs, and we realize that these things don't really exist, except for love-- for some reason love is the hardest one to let go of. Santa Claus can fly away with nary a tear, the Tooth Fairy's dead on our floor and we don't raise a hand to clap her back, Disney's not the wizard we thought he was. Then our sex drive kicks in and we have a very different view of cooties.

Love is what we hold on to, and for what? I don't mean to be the Negative Nancy in the room but honestly, for what? Love is the most selfish thing that we've ever given ourselves, the human race. Love is the perfect excuse. Deceit, and lies and murder-- love absolves us of our sin. For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16 or whatever.

We figure everyone else out but ourselves. We can look at someone once and judge them, rake our eyes up and down and think we know everything about them-- and for the most part, we do. Don't give me this bullshit about getting to know people. If we're being honest, and I am, it's the sickest part of life. We bitch and whine and complain about how much people don't make sense but we do. We make so much sense it can't even be real.

Stop looking at things in context. Stop thinking about the back story, and the complications, and the tangents. Look at what is going on and see it for what it is. The only reason we make things more complicated than they are is because they're all we have. Complicated situations make us feel important, they make us feel like we have some purpose on this planet. We don't-- of course we don't. As a rule we don't matter. None of those things you worry about matter, as a rule. It's about exceptions.

I don't think people realize how much of their life is in their own hands. I don't think people realize how much different their life could be if they took responsibility and stopped pussy-footing around. I'm not perfect, neither are you. But I can go to sleep at night because at the end of the day I don't take life as seriously as you do. There will always be another day. And if there isn't, it doesn't matter. You'll either be in a better place or thrust into the realms of nonexistence.

/rant

हेलगा

Helga is pleased. The Butcher has contacted her and wishes her to do a spread sheet with the elite of all sausage, the German Braunschweiger. She will shine her cleaver and spread her legs like the best of her country's damsels.