“I sit here before my computer, Amiguita, my altar on top of the monitor with the Virgen de Coatlalopeuh candle and copal incense burning. My companion, a wooden serpent staff with feathers, is to my right while I ponder the ways metaphor and symbol concretize the spirit and etherealize the body. The Writing is my whole life, it is my obsession. This vampire which is my talent does not suffer other suitors. Daily I court it, offer my neck to its teeth. This is the sacrifice that the act of creation requires, a blood sacrifice. For only through the body, through the pulling of flesh, can the human soul be transformed. And for images, words, stories to have this transformative power, they must arise from the human body--flesh and bone--and from the Earth's body--stone, sky, liquid, soil. This work, these images, piercing tongue or ear lobes with cactus needle, are my offerings, are my Aztecan blood sacrifices.” ― Gloria E. AnzaldĂșa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Curse Words

Sometimes I wake up feeling suffocated, lonely, and with a mild sense of panic. I have no "beautiful" description to convey the feeling(s), and this highlights the measure of my communicative skills, but I think it also makes me more of a human and less of a writer. My communication (and listening) skills seem terrible (or perhaps they are); they resemble a gorilla grunting and jumping up and down while from my guts I go Oo! Oo! Oo! and point to something, expecting the person on the other side to understand.




Last night a small shadow in my room appeared to disorient me as it reflected some sort of giant reaper hovering over me, which confused my sense of location. It was a simple shadow cast in the shape of an "M" inside my room. I knew it wasn't real, even though I saw it there, over me. I attributed the response to psychological projection. Demon's in my subconscious closet. I think that I think I "think" too much (do you know what I mean?), and this makes me crazy, or stupid, or both.

If I'm insane, 
It's this "game" that's made me change.

I turn to my red desk and see countless articles of GovernMENTAL power, ESPeCIAlly ones that tie plausible speculations to conspiracy theory, religious prophecy, parapsychology, pataphysics, and (f)art. On top sits an article detailing the "Georgia Guidestones" next to one about DARPA and techno-bio network systems next to one about ISIS next to another one about Isis, goddess of love. There's too much information (and shit) and my mind is scattered and shattered in bits and pieces within each sentence and paragraph that I have underlined and noted. Enumerations and itemization being schematized and systematized into a coherent rhizomatic web. For what purpose? I'll get back you on that...I'm still untangling these things as they further entangle me in a loop that ensnares in the reverb. I'm certain that all those texts swim around in the mind/subconscious somewhere.

I laid there staring up at this shadow and start thinking.

Is the lack of headlines about people dying in the streets of America making me crazy? is it? Am I a hypocrite for getting paid by the state while criticizing the state? Did I miss something in class? in life? Why don't I "get it", whatever "it" is? Why do I have so much trouble following the program? Why should I worry about the supermarket price of Fall fruits in a Califonian Winter? Why did I cry when I read aloud the Shema Yisrael? Why did I cover my eyes? Why is it hard for me to forgive my parents? What does the history of the West have to do with the way I feel right now?



Perhaps...



In the end it's all a big fuck you. All the tears and fears and the pain and feelings resemble a grain of sand that gets soaked in the oceans' ebb and flow, and you remain silent and reserved with the other grains that make up a larger landscape. And there's no reason why the water soaks you, it just does and that's the way it goes, back and forth. And then you start to think that probably Love does not exist and that the grain of sand next to you is there by chance; and that it's better off to abandon your humanity and become complete gritty sand, but there's none to abandon in the first place since it was ditched way before you were born. Someone gave a big fuck you to it a long time ago and they're giving it a big fuck you to it today. Take a look out your window. That man pushing the shopping cart that contains no groceries. Big fuck you. Lady sleeping in the park bench. Major F.U. The cop (outs) just doing a Mcjob. ALL CAPS FUCK YOU (this includes me). The game is rigged for you to say, "and a big shout out to all the fuck yous" 



But... 



then you start realizing that abandonment, the expletives, the Blaspheming, is what the obscene wants, even desires. Perhaps you realize and might question that maybe this world, the one built by genius of humanity, wants you to Curse. Wants us cursing each other. Wants you to use curse words. Wants us to kill each other slowly with spells of curse. That perhaps this world forces your solitude into loneliness, because that's when fear can seep in a lot easier, and after the fear settles in, you start cursing and casting spells on others, and, inadvertently, yourself. Cursing, which causes abandonment and cynicism, and which spells hex hex hex. Cursing your neighbor and the other, and an "other" and your brother and your mOther...until your humanity is slowly shred and pulverized that you indeed become that gritty grain of sand. Yet, even then, there is still an essence and form of "is-ness" that seems to remain "you." But, I'm not here to polish. I leave that to those that know what they're doing.

This is just as reminder--it's not a completely cursed world.




1 comment:

  1. Great post Miguel. Strong, always well written, and it very wells transfer the message and emotion.

    It seems sane to work for the state. Your work is measured, rewarded, on a schedule. It burns you but that's okay, being abused is nothing new, you've seen it all around you. It's stable and it's socially acceptable.

    To have felt and witnessed the fire that lives and grows in you, I can say for sure that you were born to lead, become a role model for the ones who need one yesterday, and to shed light on the injustices that twist your gut, the ones who design nightmares to remind you that the fight is not over.

    But such a quest doesn't know "success", evaluation grids or bonuses. The work is so immense, and will go on as long as humans fear each other and try to separate because we were made to believe we must compete and win to survive. We forgot our inherent social nature, we broke down our oneness.

    Cry, shake, don't sleep, feel the rage, don't forgive yet, feel so much pain and see so many shadows calling for your name that you'll break down this shell that's trying to protect you and weigh you down with a normal life and responsibilities, like a normal man.

    You are everything but normal. And thank God for you. You changed me, forever, and you will change them too. Thank God for all that you think is weird and crazy in you but that is, in fact, the very reason why you will change minds dying in the real madness that sadly appears normal.

    Your "craziness" is your best weapon to turn pain into something so small yet so transformative as the belief, for a little boy, that he can use his voice, that he matters just like his neighbor, and that they're even stronger when they face each other.

    If you were happy in this normal life you are trying to lead, well, then I wouldn't make these bold statements, and I would question the very first feelings I had about you. It had nothing to do with dating, it's so much bigger I can't even explain it.

    But it's okay, stay quiet for now, like a painful act you can barely play, your words and body that cheat your actions, stay quiet in your small and dark room until this mask that they tried to glue on your face breaks away.

    Your voice will rise and echo, carrying the words you needed too. God wants to express himself through you, and your resistance is what causes this unbearable pain and confusion. In time, the silence will turn to answers, to hope, the ashes of your fears will turn to fire and guide their steps.

    Don't see this as pressure, it's easy if we accept to be the carrier of the message, it'll come to you and you will know very well how to read the fuck you as "I fear you", because "I didn't know how to you love you". We can all learn and grow, and we will.

    Love,
    Aude

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