Oarsman

this morning i woke up and decided to (at least in these pages) take responsibility for (at least some of) my actions, my thoughts, my life. the amorphous, vague "us," "we," and "you" will be seen only when appropriate.

last night, the chill melting around the edges, encounters with Ruth, encounters with others. Leah on the piano at Empire, before i knew it was her, but almost-guessed, even with the drink flooding my veins & making a traffic jam around my heart - her voice, something i didn't suspect but maybe should have. she has notes tattooed on her. the bar was almost empty, and so few patrons clung to the edges of it, all silent, listening to her play. we were loud on the way in, but i stopped short just past the doors, staring at the organized loops of her blonde dreadlocks. was it the music that raked the coals inside of me, or was it her? was it a sublime convection of the two? could i have been so affected by one, but not the other? later, she came by the table and said hello - there, in her regular speaking voice, was the singing i'd heard, but had somehow missed before. she was kind, quiet, and reserved. Ruth, a little less drunk than i was, raked her fingers through my hair & down my spine. she observed, "you need some creature comforts."

all week i have been thinking about fucking. so of course even in my altered state, wandering like i do haplessly around someone else's house (i live here, but somehow i don't allow myself to) i pick up henry & june by anais nin. i storm through it and trip over the unsatisfactory ending somewhere around ten in the morning. all week i have the images in my head: the girl i saw on the street in the saggy, shapeless knit hat & the frayed jeans. the cautious look on her face as she crossed State, as she passed behind that mammoth tribute to Longfellow, as she

i make up lies. in that last paragraph, the girl was an amalgam of a few i have seen, a few that i know. both girls that used to work at the secondhand record & vintage clothing store beneath my last apartment. one with flashing, startling blue eyes & the other with a kindly, near-grandmotherly face. both different animals, somehow the same sex ... the same pulse, beneath their white skin.

but then, it's the brazen girls that i love, the outspoken. the ones which conduct themselves in a hortatory manner, which leave themselves for frantic, Delphic moments, and then come back to themselves. i love the two-faced, the grimaced, the angry, the insouciant, the dispossessed, the crazed, the hurt, the willful & the wanton. i want them to hurt me so that i do not have to feel the guilt of wanting to hurt them in the first place.

about nin: her book was so full of peregrinations concerning 'hurt.'

i feel that i could not write, cannot write, because i cannot be honest with myself. even here, i am lying, i am deceitful, i look for fragrant ways to cloak the distinct odor of my true self, the piss, the banality, the shit. i am ashamed of who i am. i detest who i am.

Ruth's fingers are strong and knead out the knots in my back. i wonder who i am to everyone else if i don't know who i am to myself. she comments that i have a lot of knots. i tell her i keep my stress in my back. i have heard someone say this before. i do not know if it is true of me.

there is one more thing: i would name him if i could, but i cannot, so i seek other ways to reference him. "a guy" fits awkwardly. "a boy" makes me seem like a girl due to the polarity. "a man," which he is not, although moreso on first glance than i, and then i fall short. i spent a drunken amble through the aisle of lust, making eye contact with him. he enjoys kayaking, and sea kayaking most of all. these adventures are thrilling to me. i am thrilled by the passing dream of playing a comfortable role, the newcomer, the beginner, being taught, instructed, educated by him, learning how to work the paddles (the oars?), watching his fingers and strong hands conquer the water around him. i would like to be that image, i think to myself - i would like to own strong hands, i would like to be a man. but somehow i am not. in all my thinness, in all my exacerbated eccentricity, i have disgusted myself, i have fallen short of my standards.

i would like to see him again. i feel as though he could be a friend, a comforter, a solace i could go to. i do not know how i know this. perhaps i am wrong. i can also feel a chilly distance possible in him. i can see in him a determination that is marred with laziness, perhaps confusion, perhaps loneliness. i can see in him that he is bored with this city and its people. i can see him living quietly in the pines of a big mountain with a big sky. i am willing to bet he has hurt people before, and carries it around inside of him like broken eggs, unwilling to relinquish the shells.

meanwhile, the delusion continues, but only around the edges, lapping at me like dark, hungry waves. i can hear it rumbling as an empty stomach would, or a faraway storm threatening as it inches closer...