seek and destroy
lord, I confess I want the clarity of catastrophe but not the catastrophe!!! like everyone else, I want a storm I can dance in!!! lord, I worry that love is violence!!!
It’s June. I’m tired of mincing words. I don’t want to be sweet anymore, it takes more out of me than you know. But I could be good, I think. For someone. For you, maybe.
So much changed while I wasn’t looking. Spring passed me by, leaving me with already too-faint memories and a dizzying number of disjointed writings. Half-written journal entries and late-night iPhone notes (not very chic). Not a single complete thought, so I hope you’ll forgive me if none of this makes any sense. It’s not hospitable in this skull of mine, you know. I want to put away all my anger for the season, shove it into locked safes and attics. Better yet, throw it in the river to be carried away forever. The thing is, I don’t really understand who I’d be without it.
Again, it’s summer. Bad things seem to follow me. I suppose I’m a magnet. Even after all this time, I still want love to destroy me. I still want a storm that leaves behind so much destruction I have no choice but to rebuild ground-up. It’s not that I never learn, it’s that I need a reminder. It’s rapture to be torn apart by something other than your own damned self once in a while; exposure therapy for the control freak.
In Martyr by Kaveh Akbar, the protagonist is a recovering addict who says sobriety feels like nothing, “nothing in every direction”. A “textureless middle”. While reading, I felt quite sympathetic towards Cyrus, his blustering through life, his worries that his recovery wasn’t meaningful enough to count as recovery. Anyway, the everyday chaos becomes monotonous, then you’re looking for the next thing to crush you into a thousand tiny shards. Nothing is ever enough, even the awful things. There’s some Nietzsche quote I’m not annoying enough to remember right now—something about needing to pet every monster.
I used to love this sort of thing in college. Look at me, such a tragic girl, looking for the wrong things in the wrong places, whatever whatever whatever. I liked girls whose eyes told me they were trouble and posh boys with bruises on gaunt cheekbones. Sometimes I still do, why lie? Summer’s a good time as any to cave into vices. Summer tells me none of it matters anyway. Your own ideas of what’s good for you, who’s right for you, what you should be doing. Nothing is forever, and that’s a good thing. Does this make any sense at all?
One thing about being back home, whatever home is supposed to mean, is I can finally see the stars. In New York, there’s too much pollution, and the city’s so bright at nighttime it snuffs them out. I think of my 3 AM walks back home, staring up at that black expanse, or whatever little of it I can see. Feeling incredibly alone and still loving it. I ran and mostly didn’t look back; doesn’t that count for something? Despite the illusory isolation, feeling that beating heart beneath my feet, the pulse under the concrete. Here, something’s still there, but it’s asleep. Feels more ancient, primordial. I’ve been reading Beloved by Toni Morrison and I’m reminded of how many ghosts there are in the south.
I was meant to put a whole thinkpiece here on what it means to be saved. By God, by something, by someone. Anointed, holy, blessed. Sin, salvation, deliverance. Confession. The words tend to come to mind every summer. Oscar Wilde said, “Love is a sacrament that should be taken kneeling, and domine non sum dignus should be on the lips and in the hearts of those who receive it.” Domine non sum dignus. Lord, I am not worthy.
It’s perverse and cliché, I guess, this desire to be saved. Who’s worthy of it? Does wanting to hand your life over to someone or something, blind faith, make you foolish or human? Anyway, I don’t have the answers. It turns out it doesn’t really matter. There are countless things that can feel like salvation and many of them will destroy you. Maybe being torn apart is the real salvation. Your guess is as good as mine.
[Subtitle words from poetry by Franny Choi and Jose Olivarez]
hate you because you wrote it before i did? only kidding, thank you for your brilliance
Love…