Bird As Fish

What he did wasn’t right. And that had never dawned on me before. It wasn’t right. All my life, trying to live the consequences, but in the end, it comes down to the fact that it just wasn’t right. It’s okay because I’m in the right. It’s not my fault, it has nothing to do with me. It wasn’t my fault but I’ll be okay. I’ll be okay. I’ll make it, because it wasn’t my fault, and it wasn’t right. What they did wasn’t right either. Oh such a relief. It wasn’t right. I have someone on my side. Finally, it isn’t just me against the rest of the world – it wasn’t right. It wasn’t right. My dad and his moods, it wasn’t right. It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t anything that I did. The sex wasn’t right. I wish someone else would come to me and say that, just that, “It wasn’t right. I’m on your side. It wasn’t your fault.” I wouldn’t have to fight and fight and struggle and strive just like someone tied up with ropes and thrown away. And this knot in my stomach would disappear, and this constant clenching would dissipate like sugar into water and I could look into a man’s eyes without shaking.

©2004 All Rights Reserved MJ Jackson
This article may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the permission of the author.

Alright.
I haven't written a personal post about Dale in the longest time (since Nov 26th actually). Now the reason for this is because I hadn't got him and our relationship all figured out in my mind so here goes:
(Drum roll please....)
We broke up.
Yeah, on the 8th. I realize that it is now the 21, many days later, but I still continued to see a lot of him, and wondered if maybe we might go out again. We decided to end it, for various reasons. I still really like him though. I still really like him, but he hurts me, and he hurts my feelings, so a lot of the time, I feel like I am going to cry. And he belittles me. And he is critical and mean. I feel so powerless around him. It is not good at any rate.

I think, and actually am pretty sure that deep down he really thinks little of himself, hence why he must belittle others. He goes from these huge swings of "I'm a great person, so much better than all the rest of you" to "I'm a terrible person. That's why you don't want to go out with me." He's really afraid.

He thinks he has to prove what a great person he is because he has a fancy, new, expensive truck, and because he has a great job, and he is only 23 and already is preparing for retirement, and he tries to flash all these fancy things in people's eyes to blind them, so they don't actually see him. The last time he drove me home, he was complaining that he thought girls only wanted him for his money. I blatantly said "Well then why don't you stop talking about it." But he didn't like that suggestion too much.

You know, I tried to stick it out, kinda to show him that I cared about him, that I wanted to do stuff with him, but he's just hard to get close to. All he wants to do is hurt me, and I don't deserve that. So I think I'll see little of him from now on. It's been a couple of day since I've seen him. I saw him on the 18th. It was his birthday, and I was sick with the flu, and we watched football together (he's a big fan of the sport). I fell asleep. Then he took me home, and I kind of felt like that was the end.

Now, I'm not saying that I'm perfect, or that I was perfect either, but that's just what I see, cleaned up, about him.

©2004 All Rights Reserved MJ Jackson
This article may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the permission of the author.

I realize that what I just wrote makes it sound like I have romantic feelings for this person, which I don't. I just felt that that was a really cool thing he did for me. Somebody remembered what my favourite song was. Somebody put a beautiful picture with those beautiful words.
And somebody put effort into it, and shimmered the words in golden sunlight.
It just really made me feel special *shrugs and smiles*

©2004 All Rights Reserved MJ Jackson
This article may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the permission of the author.

Oh, it's beautiful, beautiful, I cannot even tell you how.

Little hills covered in summer green in a secluded glen on the mountainside. Ancient trees covered in thick carpets of moss, growing up around, soaking the golden sunlight that streams through to where I look out from, and cover me with warmth. Another lush green mountain sits close by, keeping me a secret from the world. It is beautiful, but not what I call love.

A few nights ago, I was talking to one of my good friends on the internet and I sent him, just as a matter of fact, one of my more favourite songs. It is by Eva Cassidy, called Fields of Gold. I thought it was beautiful 5 years ago, and I think it is still beautiful today. Her mellow voice and acoustic guitar blend together into a bittersweet breeze that blows over me when I listen to it. It is beautiful, but not what I call love.

Yesterday, when I went online last night, he jumped on my as soon as I signed in, and said he had something for me. He sent me this picture of the secluded glen that he had found, with the words from the song written in shimmering green summer words:

"So she took her love for to gaze awhile...
Among the fields of barley
In his arms she fell as her hair came down
Among the fields of gold

Will you stay with me, will you be my love
Among the fields of barley
You can tell the sun in his jealous sky
That we walked in fields of gold"

That is what I call love.

©2004 All Rights Reserved MJ Jackson
This article may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the permission of the author.

I realize how everything becomes so much clearer when I drink. Everything becomes what it is, instead of what I want it to be, or what I strive to be, but maybe this revelation is mired in vodka, maybe it becomes mixed in the drink, and stirred around in the bubbles, and beautiful blue goblet. I realize suddenly when I am drunk how lonely I am, and how much more I want to drink, how much I want to party with friends, but suddenly the revelation hits me like a schizophrenic off his medication, that I don't have any friends. I wish I could get totally wasted, and not here, not here at my house, where I don't even own my own space, but somewhere else, and somebody would take care of me. Maybe that is my utmost wish in life, I think it is, [as the alcohol swirls around in my brain] how lacking I am in life of anyone else who would care. That is what I need, that is what I want, and I feel like I am not myself, I feel like I am talking like someone drunk. Please, for God's sake, won't anyone give a shit about me, but sadly, no, that is not my part in life. I got stuck with, as it were, the more responsible part of the project of life, to live it alone, to live it strong, to live it to be the foundation for others, especially Naing and JJ, especially Nung, especially Nadiel, especially for Dad, who left long ago, to pardon those who cannot be all that is expected of them. I hope I remember this when I wake up from long stupours of alcohol's dreams. But most of all [and I realize that I am making no sense now] I hope I remember to find someone who will love me. God, is that so hard to find in this world? Apparently so. It is my lot to love others until the end of the earth, but never to gain anything in return, to never have anything back, to never trust, to never love [for love is without fear, remember], and I feel like I am always on the edge of it, always just right on the edge, balancing and trying to find somewhere large. I am looking for a large place, where I can exist free of charge, where I can love and be loved, without fear of falling. I am always almost falling, even when I don't think about it, even when you look at me and I smile back at you, happily. I figure that all I have to do is to try and finish writing everything down, and that would be a good time to fall, but I have to finish writing everything first. I can't leave without that being finished, or I think it would all be in vain. And no one would ever know me. I would be a waste of flesh, a waste of blood, a waste of my time. I have seen something that no one else has in the whole world, and I wish you knew about it, even if you don't care. And at the same time I understand if you don't care: there are too many people in the world to care about.

God, Dad, Dale, don't you care, won't you care, wouldn't you care if I [there is that selfish word again, that selfish work of me] vanished into a puff of smoke, expired like a lawn without water. Mire it all in alcohol, please, keep it hidden when I don't think of it, and think only of how I have not done the dishes in 3 weeks, and about the mold that keeps growing in the bathroom stall, but I think that I am a depressed drunk. Tomorrow, I shall go out and purchase more vodka for I have a day off, and maybe I shall try to find somewhere where I can live in a large place, not by myself, not by myself, and I shall continue writing until it is all gone. Don't waste it, don't waste this state where everything is as is, not as I want it to be.

The only problem is that it is hard to read the words when I am so drunk.

©2004 All Rights Reserved MJ Jackson
This article may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the permission of the author.

Dear Naing,
If I were without you, I don't know what I'd do. How can I express to you that you are loved? How can I show you I love you? You are my best friend. In the whole world, there is no one I can talk to like I can talk to you. You don't want anything from me, except my computer on a semiregular basis. You don't care if I'm crummy. You spend hours talking to me for no reason, except that I'm upset and hurting. You give me your honest opinion no matter what, and it doesn't hurt with you like it does with other people. You love me.

I had a dream the other night, or maybe it wasn't a dream. It was in that place in between dreams and reality, and you were there, and then you suddenly died. And I sat beside the car, at first in shock, but then I started thinking about all of the things that would change now that you were gone. And I realized something. Now that you were gone, I would be alone, completely and utterly alone. You are the barrier that keeps me from it just being me. You are the one who keeps it from just being one. You are my buffer, you are my window, you are my telephone, you are my playmate, you are my best friend, you are my salt, you are my stories (half of them begin with "This one day, Naing..."), you are my validation, you are my fan club, you are my craziness, and I don't even know if I can say how much I love you, and if I could, if it would mean anything to you. You laugh at all my stupid jokes, you love all my stories, you listen to me. You and I can talk about anything, anything that I could never talk about with anyone else, periods and sex and hickeys and illfitting underwear. You know just as much about me as everyone else in the world, and you nag about the rest, in such a loving way that I want to tell you.

You are like that OLP song that goes something like "sunny days that we ignore because we're all down and jaded". I'm sorry Naing, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Please forgive me for being such a crummy sister to you. I love you so much
MJ.

©2004 All Rights Reserved MJ Jackson
This article may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the permission of the author.

A little while ago while at work, I decided that I had not written any haiku for about a year now, and that I want to give it another try. I enjoy writing them because they capture a brief moment in time, and all you have to do is try to write out exactly what you are seeing in your head without all of the extras. Disclaimer: These haiku are not traditional haiku, however, I believe they capture the essence of haiku, which is the important thing.

Payment
Two coins sit on a table
Reflecting overhead lights.
Transiency.

The Computer
The cyclops
He speaks and thinks
And does not know he exists.

The following haiku was difficult to write, because it was hard to get out exactly what I was seeing in my minds eye and it actually started out as a rhyming poem. Here are the stages it went through:

She crouches low beside the waves
As darkness covers up her face
She shifts as up against the rocks
The wind it screams and cries and mocks.

Dark wind blows across stars
Lighthouse turns endlessly
Pale child hides on rocks.

Dark wind blows across lighthouse,
Turning not on pale child
Lying nearby.

Lying just beyond the reach
Of lighthouse rays.
Pale child on dark rocks.

Pale child on dark rocks
Just beyond lighthouse rays
Alone.

The pale child on dark rocks
Just beyond the reach of the lighthouse rays
Is alone.

The pale child on dark rocks
Just beyond the lighthouse rays
Is alone.

The above is my final copy of a long process of putting down exactly what I wanted, and "x"ing all the rest. Interesting process, but of course, only interesting to myself, and I don't expect that anyone else will find this of any interest, but just here in little notes to myself, when I look back, will I find interest.

©2004 All Rights Reserved MJ Jackson
This article may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the permission of the author.

Today I found an interesting attitude that I possess, very interesting indeed, especially when it comes to Nadiel. I found that with certain people, I push them to dislike me, I push people to anger and am satisfied when I make them angry. Instead of just satisfied, I mean bordering on relief, not that I am happy they dislike me, but it seems easier maybe than trying to please them. Maybe it is just a lazy attitude but no, I do the same thing with Dale, at least kind of. I fall behind him, so that maybe he'll forget about me, and I don't have to worry about him liking me anymore. [How is it possible that he'll just forget me, his girlfriend, I don't know, but that is what I think, I guess, and I don't do anything special for him, or even try to look nice for him. Maybe it would just be easier if he did forget me]

Maybe somehow I can fight this attitude, detrimental as it is. The one time Mum yelled at me, and I actually laughed with glee. What a horrible thing todo. I just feel like shouting to the whole world sometimes, "Leave me alone! I don't give a damn what you think about me" but deep down, I know I still do. I feel like it is a something that just keeps on, keeps on tapping my shoulder, all the while he has his hand in my stomach and squeezes harder and harder the more I try to rid myself of him and that it will take some form of violence to rid me of him. Maybe the sword, maybe the sword will have to cut it out. Either that or it will come out as I fall down a flight of stairs. Either one really, I think, would do the trick nicely.

© 2004 All Rights Reserved MJ Jackson
This article may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the permission of the author.

The sun it shines on noon day tides
And falls along with blasted times
To days of unknown chimney rides
The smoke to block the life time lie

That never showed itself before
And climbs up top to father more
Extend the days up to the door -
The end, the dead, the sickly whores

That patch the makeup-cover dead
The kiss that breaks the neck, the head
Always, always stay in bed
Making love with secret dead.

They look alive with coffins smile
To always vultures simp'ring rile
That peck and peck at deadly Nile
And fly inland about a mile

To sand that blows across the place
To sphinx that never look amazed
To palaces of nothing grace
To sun that smokes this chimney face.

This paradise of rocky lore
As nothing grows here anymore
The hill of grass, a barren knoll
That kisses sunlight never cold

And when a ray of sun's gone bad
It kisses wat'ring holes of gnat
As sitting eating on the nap
Of forehead, parasitic claps

Audiences ever been
And levers on the brown latrine
Sickly rotting face of green
Never will the cheeks be clean.

And coming down now from the door
We wait it now forever more
As sitting waiting on the floor
Of Egypt's grand remembrance war.

© 2004 All rights reserved MJ Jackson
This article may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the permission of the author.

The knife it whines and opens wide
Everything that is inside.
When I come home I hear them fight
Know them both in different light.
I shut my ears with all my might:
Drown the sounding of their words.
I wish that I had never heard
Resonance of cutting knives.

©2004 All Rights Reserved MJ Jackson
This article may not be copied in whole or in part without permission from the author.