Category: General Musings

A well turned phrase is like an unexpected glimpse of a pretty girl’s smile or the flash of a thigh under a short leather skirt.

I am not a writer, I am a lover of words.

I don’t write enough to consider myself a writer.

My writing is selfish. My writing is driven by external motives. I find much of it beautiful but understand it took shape under the harsh requirements of my needs. I birthed them out of hunger. I endeavor to make art my bitch, to string up my muses in leather and steel. My writing is an extension of my desire to manipulate and control. I live for the thought that my words will linger inside, words becoming an idea that seeds its way into the darker seas of self. I live to see my hunger reflected in her eyes.

The last year of my life has been an interesting one. I’ve settled and am ill content to remain so. At ease is not a state in which I thrive. I live for periods of unrest followed by brief moments of leisure and decadence. Creating turmoil for the sake of chaos is not the best path out. Creating the possibility of chaos by introducing unpredictable elements into my life is the better path, one more likely to leave me bloodied but still standing.

I am starting with a list. A list of experiences I want to participate in. It will have no particular order. I begin that list today.

I was dreaming of blind butterfly kisses left against her skin, some bringing gasps of pleasure, others bringing utterances of pain. The alarm awoke me.

I laid in bed long enough to soak up the dream and then slid out of the sheets. Shower, hot water, classical music. The music lasted for five minutes before dying batteries left only the silence of my own thoughts.

My sanctuary.

I stepped out of the shower, large crimson towel in hand, time taken to dry. Hair brushed, light use of cologne. Chain slipped over my neck, ring onto my right hand.

Time to leave.

I am not in the habit of censoring myself – writing, for me, is about exposure. It is about finding truth (or changing it).

But this isn’t always just about me; while I may carve myself open for the world to see, it is not respectful to do so at the expense of others.

So the post I put up today (below) will be password protected. It is a small story, one I made a passing mention to here, and it is more of a tease than anything else. You’re not missing much. Still, if you’re really that curious, you can send me a request for the password.

I have an uneasy truce with my subconscious self. In my younger days, I devoted a great deal of time to the pursuit of self-awareness. I came to know the shape of my instincts, to memorize some of the basic patterns of behavior that rule my waking life. I learned the subtle pathways of self-destruction that I unerringly follow when I am not paying attention. I found the touchstones upon which my ethics rested.

In my youth, I had a close relationship with my restless subconscious side. We shared the same pair of eyes in looking at the world, snickering together as if we shared some secret of proven worth that separated me from everyone else.

I got older and turned my internal studies towards group dynamics. I learned to be a more social animal and although I continued to retain a certain reserve of myself, I felt the edges blurring as I made friends and found lovers. As the distance between the world and I lessened, the distance between my id and I grew.

We’re not so close now. Our manner of communication no longer takes the shape of ideas drifting in from the hazy fog lurking around my active mind. They come now in the form of dreams, of unthinking reactions to certain words or situations. Or even in my writing.

Today, I recognize that my dreams are trying to tell me something but I seldom try to understand them. I catch glimpses of the messages my shadow self is trying to convey but unless they have a direct impact on my daily life, I push them aside.

I don’t just ignore it, I drown it out. My oft-reserved thinking spaces have been co-opted. I download radio shows and listen to them whenever I am driving. My thoughts during my daily walks are filled more with creating order out of the chaos in my day and less in creating chaos out of the order in my head (chaos being the birthing ground of all great ideas, the genesis of escapist fantasy, and one of my true sources of joy).

I create background noise so I don’t have to listen to myself.

I crowd my head with every voice but my own.

And I begin to wonder.

What makes me so scared of the quiet?

I once tried my hand at writing horror. It was a short horror story, in fact, that gave me the final edge in getting accepted to the college I wanted to go to.

A few nights ago I had a dream that was spawned somewhere between too many Edgar Allen Poe stories and my own personal insecurities. The premise of the dream would either make a very nice horror story or a very interesting psychiatrist session. Probably both.

The premise is this: what would it feel like to be trapped behind a mirror in your own home? And I mean this literally. Being bound and gagged in a room just tall and wide enough for you stand in, no room to turn or sit. And you face a one-way mirror into the bathroom of your house. Those who come in, your loved ones, the ones you care about, stare into the mirror and only see their reflections. But you are trapped, watching them stare right at you, oblivious.

This was my dream, being trapped there. Watching.

Do you ever think about how much of yourself is defined by how others see you?