Feathers' Journal

10:05am: the day after tomorrow
went to nathan's party yesterday and had an absolutely awesome time. was very sad to leave. i got so spoiled during the year seeing alex every day...

last night i had more strange nightmares

the main one was me, alex, nathan and lenore in this HUGE building which was somehow in my mind a building at purchase crossed with some other office building/conference center/factory. There was a HUGE HUGE STROM. I cannot possibly emphasize that enough. HUGE. Devistating. And we were running, fleeing frantically, from one part of the building to the other trying to find somewhere we would not be killed. Tordano, psunami, lightening, earthquake, and terror gripping all of us completely. Obviously very influenced by The Day After Tomorrow. I remember the last part best: we finally flee to the basement and think we are finally safe, as the incredible noise rocks the house around us, the basement is huge, with very tall ceilings, and is divided mostly in half by a wall. Len and Nathan are on the far side, and we suddenly realize that on that side there is a glass wall that is on ground level. The storm busts through, gushing water and incredible wind. We scream, but Nathan and Len grab onto a bench and are screaming with *laughter* before long, being beaten with water, however I am still terrified. I think one of the back walls blows out, there are streets, the storm lulls a little. Alex looks at me with a determined, stern look on his face I've never seen before and starts to walk away, out of the building. I yell after him looking over a wall I am clinging to, and he yells back "It's time I started looking for my father". I freak out to be seperated, and was screaming after him, "I'm frightened! I'm frightened!!" at the very top of my lungs. That's when I woke up.

One of my first thoughts (it was around 7am) was that I hoped we were not going to see The Day After Tomorrow and time soon, as after that it would scare the piss out of me. Yeah, guess what I'm going with my family to do at 4:30. Meep.

12:13pm: i need an outlet for this
Updates:

Summer! Home! Clean room, happy burrow...
Got a job working for a guy who owns his own house painting business. Good pay, working outside, feeling like I'm really doing something. Huzzah!
Miss Alex a lot! Seeing him this weekend- for Nathan's birthday party :) YAY.

Last night I had a dream that I was a pirate king... well, queen i suppose, but that doesn't have quite the same ring to it. In any case, I was full of this feeling of incredible aliveness and power. I had gone missing and I returned to my crew to be recieved by much relief and joy and celebration and worship, full of a feeling of heroism and verility and grandeur. It was brief but wonderful. Woke up definitely wishing Alex was there. Damn I miss him. But I'll see him tomorrow. Boojah!

Life is good.

11:13am: A beautiful green dream of the mansion of wood...
I had a beautiful but frightening dream last night which made me feel driven right back down to being centered. It was like the wet warm earth outside and all the saturated late spring green crawled and seeped through my open window and into my mind. A dream where Purchase was transformed into my fantasy mansion of ancient wooden boards, and as Alex and I explored we found where the hippies had transformed forgotten upper rooms into Living space, and looking out the huge window was a vegitable garden they had planted, beds were there, warm tan light, wood, worn wonderful love was there. And as I explored I found where a punk girl and her boyfriend were squatting in a room painted bright magenta, and I made friends with the girl and we explored places she had not dared go before then. The mansion wobbled and the boards gaped between our feet, we clung to things to keep from falling and I said to her, "Like in many of my dreams" and nearly (for the first time in my life) became lucid. But as we emerged I heard people coming to discover us, and up the stairs out of the huge open area which was the dining hall came a group of heavy-boned potheads, led by Skoochie. I blocked their way toward the magenta room because I knew they would not keep the punks' secret safe. So they turned aside to the room which looked out on the garden, where Alex was still, and explained they had only come there to smoke. Alex said it was cool and made motions to join them, and suddenly Alex and I were like incorrigable children and were sitting out on a rock in the garden: I was posessed by a strangling root pain and he became quiet and mournful as I threw a tantrum. I screamed and slammed my fists on his knee screaming "I hate it I hate it!", and he apologized with self-pitty and guilt swimming in his eyes. Things became disoriented, and the dream ended.

What a rich, passionate allegory for my life as of late. My understanding of my feelings about pot certainly are like a little kid: all gut. The invasion of this force upon my fantasy of what Purchase should be. Upon my hopes of what it could be. My hopes, therefore, of what my life could be. My posessive influence over Alex, my desire to show him a life like that room. Full of lived-in, pure love with a window overlooking a garden. That intimate happiness I've had in the community of hippies I'm accustomed to. Light and green growing. A vibrant life, in short. My personal ideal.

And so I set out on a summer of seeking something like the upper floors of that mansion, long forgotten but still full of love...

...minus Skoochie, this time.

10:39pm: An open letter to a snake,
It may have finally come time to write my final testament. To put down my feet steady and tell the world against all your delusions the way it was and the reason I am who I am now. I write this for the benefit of myself first, in honor of my name and as a statement of my rightness. Second, for all the poor souls who might be helped from falling under your influence and suffering as I did because of it; as an attempt to make peace with my fellow woman and acknowledge that YOU are the enemy, not them. And third, for your edification, that you might one day have the guts to awaken to your own reality and suffer the way you deserve to, and be a better man for it:



Marvin Arthur Warren, I hate you.

I used to be able to say that I believed knowing any person well enough would make it impossible to hate them. I have never felt something I identify as "hate" for a person before, and my resent deepens that you've been such a person to me that my heart is no longer free and untainted as it once was. I have turned it over time and again in my mind, trying to understand what exactly it was that caused me to cross that profane line. And I think I can refine it to one point:

The defining characteristic which makes you utterly despicable to me.

You don't think I have a right to hate you.
You are so selfish that you have no idea the extent to which two of the three years I spent with you absolutely ruined me and changed me forever.
You are so. So. So. Fucking. Self righteous. And self centered. And so. Fucking. Delusional.

If you ever really loved me, if you have any idea what love really is, you would have been absolutely unable to function as a member of society you would have been so prostrate with guilt during the last two months we had.

In stead you sneered at me while I cried with absolute devastation and told me to my face the most offensive thing I have ever had anyone say to me: That I had no right to be upset over most of what had happened, that I was projecting my "baggage" onto you, that I was the delusional one, ganging up on you. In other words, if something was the matter, it was MY fault.

You said this to the woman who waited faithfully at home for you six months while you walked the earth. You said this to the woman who walked beside you on your way to prison and bought you blankets to keep you from freezing when you were caught off guard by the cold that night, and stayed with you, shirking responsibilities and freezing alongside of you to make sure you were comfortable. To the woman who visited you twice a week, driving six hours each trip, to see you while you were incarcerated. To the woman who took you into her own home when your parents kicked you out. To the woman you said was the only person who took the time to understand you. To the woman who stood by you despite all her friends' and family's warnings. To the woman who never did anything but try to forgive and understand you. Who tried so hard she shattered, repeatedly.

You said this to the woman you ignored the moment there was another woman there to grope or dance with. To the woman you cheated on. Repeatedly. To the woman you threatened with suicide retributions. To the woman you said simply didn't have enough love in her heart to understand why you would want to sleep with more than one woman at once. To the woman you tried to manipulate into polygamy and told that if she could just overcome all the fear in her she would want to let you have multiple partners. To the woman you caused at least two nervous breakdowns. To the woman who went on forgiving you and loving you. To the woman you never said thank you to, only told it still wasn't enough.

And I'd like to say for the record:

May those words you spoke in early October turn to maggot infested shit and may you be forced to eat them with a rusty teaspoon.

May god rape you with the realization of your own hideously self-grandeurized villainy.

May you freeze with an empty heart and an even more empty bed, and live your shameless life a year alone for every woman whose presence makes my heart scream in fear and pain when they come near the man I now love. And may you have god's screws in your fingers for any suffering my loved ones come to by my hand because of my insecurity.

May I one day have the chance to punch you straight on in the face for every time you struck at me with manipulation, and may you be cursed to say "thank you" for it each time, as I was.

I would warn any woman who you might befall. A sweet and stinging tongue lies in that mouth, and whatever way it touches people, one day it will burn. You are a Siren. Your lies are deeper than your personality by far, and so they are infinitely believable, especially to yourself. It is so deeply appropriate that you make your living now imposing yourself upon strangers and talking them into giving to you, claiming your cause is good and righteous.

"And you can talk of great philosophy
But if you can't be kind to people
Every day
Then it doesn't mean that much to me."

You use people until they are a shattered, dry and hollow shell. I spent so long trying to logic why you weren't a bad person, and I convinced you just in time to realize I was wrong.

And I can hear you say now: "That's not the way it happened at all. And what about John? What about Grant? I was always faithful to you in heart, I never stopped loving you."
I can hear you say: "It's unfortunate that you feel that way. You obviously don't understand me at all anymore."
I can hear you say: "But I've been righteously celibate for _____ now."
I can hear you stick in nonsensical bits of poetic sounding bullshit to try and elivate yourself.

You sniveling fool. Dating one person while I was trying to get over you, having a crush on another which amounted to nothing, which I told you about immediately and explained that while I liked him I couldn't in good faith stay with you is in no way comparable... and you DARE to look down on me compared to fooling around with... what was it? I think I counted 23 girls? While you supposedly were in love with me? What is more shameful? Following your heart honestly twice, or using twenty odd girls for a bit of sex and company while you couldn't be with me? You creep.

And what changed so much between August and October about you that I suddenly would be unable to understand you? The only reason you ever said I understood was because you liked what you heard, and the moment that changed I was obviously an ignorant, delusional bitch.

And good, I'm glad you're not waving your little attention-hungry dick where it doesn't belong, at the moment. Taking a break from convincing needy girls that more sexuality shared with more people must mean more love in the world. Just cause you're horny doesn't mean you're full of love for the world. Hell, I think the fact that you only have love for the female half apparently, should be a little bit of a clue.

And as for the poetry, it doesn't fool me anymore. So don't give me your calm, condescending, and appropriately sad responses or your thick rationalization anymore. I don't care to ever hear anything you have to say ever again.


With only enough sweetness to make it cruel,
As you would always,

Queen of the Dan'da'lions
a better soul than you by far


P.S. I laugh at all judgement; especially bitterly for those who might defend you as I once did. And you can shove it up your wannabe beatnik ass, little boy.

...and STILL a better soul by far...

12:41pm: Sparse Enteries by a happy heart
So, It's been four months that I've been with Alex now. And my Livejournal enteries have dwindled down to almost nothing because I'm simply not emo enough. However, tonight I have a few to myself, and a little bit of inspiration, and I've come to my lovely LJ to update.

Slowly processing the past few years, and Alex has been a crying shoulder a few times. I'm re-evaluating what's ok and not, re-setting boundaries Marvin trampled into the dirt. I'm re-creating what loving someone should be, and what it is. I'm dealing with some crap, but too personal to share on a public journal, and minor in the light of how much good I have right now. Calm, steady, joyful, trust-filled. I'm safe with Alex. And I laugh to think that if Marvin ever reads that, he will think it a flaw.

Let him go on terrorizing the females in his life, I won't think it a virtue anymore.

But this journal isn't about him anymore. It's about me now. HA!

I love driving. I love the being alone, the freedom, music and windows open, I love it.
I love being in bed. I love eating peprocini and chocolate milk. I love DANCING to the Baobabs, to anything, to nothing. I love that Alex dances even though he says he can't keep a rythm in any way. I love art. I love drawing and I love watching Alex draw. I love the idea of doing gurilla art in the woods on campus, and I'm stewing on a lot of ideas. I love characters, stories, people, strangers or immaginary, friends and lovers. I love stories, so much.
I love dressing up, I love being with other people dressed up. I love food. I love forest.

I am so INCREDIBLY excited that it's getting warm out.

The world is a new, tenuous, and wonderful thing.
"...a world not vague, not lonely,
Not governed by me only..."

6:51am: most beautiful sad song ive heard in a while:
The Shins
Pink Bullets


I was just bony hands as cold as a winter pole
you held a warm stone out new flowing blood to hold
oh what a contrast you were
to the brutes in the halls
my timid young fingers held a decent animal.

Over the ramparts you tossed
the scent of your skin and some foreign flowers
tied to a brick
sweet as a song
the years have been short but the days were long.

Cool of a temperate breeze from dark skies to wet grass
we fell in a field it seems now a thousand summers passed
when our kite lines first crossed
we tied them into knots
and to finally fly apart
we had to cut them off.

Since then it's been a book you read in reverse
so you understand less as the pages turn
or a movie so crass
and awkardly cast
that even I could be the star.

I don't look back as much as a rule
and all this way before murder was cool
but your memory is here and I'd like it to stay
warm light on a winter day.

Over the ramparts you tossed
the scent of your skin and some foreign flowers
tied to a brick
sweet as a song
the years have been short but the days go slowly by
two loose kites falling from the sky
drawn to the ground and an end to flight.

12:39pm: homecoming from my little war
This morning (noon) I awoke after having slept a very long time, and felt alert for the first time in days. I've been running like a toy low on batteries, and slumping into unhappyness for non-specific reasons. But this morning I woke up and immediately got out of bed. I made tea, I called alex (who was stil asleep), I opened the window for the cat, and I decided to put on music.

When I flipped open my portfolio of music, it immediately fell open to a page which had on it Dar Williams' album Mortal City. I flipped past it quickly, brushing the temptation aside (no, Arielle, you woke up in a good mood, no fair throwing yourself into sentimental sadness, not allowed to be sentimental about the past two years yet, not allowed to listen to that on a winter morning when there's snow outside, when you're alone, no no...), but it stuck with me, and I gave in and put it on.

I was surprised by my own reaction to the familiar songs. In stead of bringing back heartache over marvin, they brought back a love for the person I was during those years--the happiest points of which were (and my friends can attest, my journal can attest) when I was ALONE. I finally let myself feel it. It was safe to like that stage of my development. I was a good person. In some ways, I was better than I am now: more trusting, more forgiving. But I'm stronger now.

The pining love songs, sun coming in and out of shadows and swelling in my room off of thin, fresh snow, cold fresh air, sitting at the computer barefoot in a tanktop. It's ok to be this foolish girl again. She's safe in my life again, doesn't have to be locked up and shunned. Shake her hand like a soldier who survived, take her into my arms--she's alive! I don't have to be ashamed of the way I acted.

I missed the sort of sighing, half bittersweet feeling love can have. I missed being quiet and alone with myself listening to sentimental music. Hell, I miss being barefoot. Sunlight. Just that one window reminds me what it feels like to be open, not scared something's after me.

Once again in my life, it feels good to have Marvin far away. And it feels like I should make some concessions here, sitting here feeling like a person who's been reunited with one part of her soul, knowing he may well read this, but I think they would be apologies. And I'm not apologizing anymore, ever again. I did plenty of that when it might have helped something. No need to get that fool further indebted to me. --yes, such an arrogant thing to say, it's time I was arrogant for a change.

This feeling makes me want to lay eyes on Alex. I think it would be like introducing this Homecoming Me to him, and I think it would feel wonderful ...it's a part of me that's been in a concentration camp for the good of my one woman nation. It's absence has been part of what's making life feel odd and surreal for me.

The light swells, my room glows.

I'm going to go dance barefoot with my little old self, to Dar.

12:20am: after things settled down:

8:32pm: fire
"I remember the first time i saw someone lying on the cold street
I thought,
"I can't just walk past here.
This can't just be
True."
But I learned by example to just keep-mo-ving-my-feet
It's amazing the things that
we all learn
to do.
So we're led by denial like
Lambs To The Slaughter
serving empires of style and
Carbonated Sugar Water
And the old farm road to four lane that
leads to the Mall
And our dreams are all guiletines
Waiting to fall..."

So today i watched my neighbor's house burn down. It was one of those kids in your neighborhood who's just been angry for so long everyone just calls him a punk. Gus was the only kid I ever got into a fight with... like a real fight. I slammed his head against the bus window in middle school and ordered him to "die" passionately... because he had wished the same on my best friend at the time, who had been rushed to the hospital earlier that day.

Gus and his brother and mother are fine. But their house is nothing but a front wall, and the whole neighborhood is full of this acrid smoke smell that i can't get out of my mouth. My mother and her friend Tee and some other people are organizing a fund to help the family get back on their feet.

I was standing at the street corner watching the smoke writhe and billow like this monsterous snake or garden hose moving in slow motion, blowing in all directions with the wind and pouring and curling over itself, and I got to being stuck in a mental corner thinking about Karma, and "what the hell is something like *this* supposed to mean in the grand scale?" and then thinking I was an idiot for presuming to know. I tried giving a hug to Gus when he arrived to find his house in flames. Then I felt like an idiot for presuming I was of any help there, or letting myself feel noble or special in some way for having compassion. And the column of smoke writhed right around to completely obscure everything around all of the spectators and put ash and soot in our faces, our hair, our clothing. Gus dissappeared into the gray oblivion toward dozens of flashing lights with the look I've come to kinda recognize lately: determination to keep going and take care of things.

The fire engines are gone now, I'm at home with the image of that smoke that was gushing out of the flames and obscuring the entire neighborhood really pounding at my brain. Like that smoke were an acrid geiser of all the shit that built up in that family up until that day: the bitter resent of two boys growing up with a parapalegic older sister who stole away all of their parents attention, money, patience. The family that just reeked of neglect toward anything that wasn't that daughter. The boys who always had explosive hell in their eyes, ripping around the neighborhood on ATVs and shooting at street signs with bebee guns and screaming nothing but cusses at adults from age seven. And I assume a mom who just held on. It's like the house just couldn't hold it any longer, and just exploded, and all that smoke just came pouring out, right into the rest of the neighborhood's eyes, wanting to know, "why didn't you have compassion earlier?" and saying to everyone who bore witness, "too little, too late."

11:55pm: mud!
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