Be of service. You are taking your degree into a society dominated by concentrated poverty and a vulnerable middle class, a society where it is harder to pay for education, harder to find a job, harder to buy a house and harder to hold onto those things even if you manage to get them. You are entering adulthood during a period of mass incarceration and near constant war. There is a lot for you to do. Service is the rent you pay for the space you take up on the earth, and as a relatively privileged American you take up a lot of space. We are the most consuming, polluting, wasteful nation on earth. So your rent is steep. Pay it with service.

You’re my source of inspiration, did I pass my limit? We used to light an incense, we’d snap in the kitchen, following our instincts with whipped cream in the dark, the chemistry between us when shit seems to get hard, we used to cut class to chill, we’d get alone I’d choke, spittin’ shit I wrote for you, not just blowin’ smoke, no other will effect me in the same place that you touched, sometimes I wish my friends would’ve never introduced us, you give me goosebumps, but the truth is I love it, sometimes too much to take, we used to do it in public, on the train in front of other people she never seemed to care, where we was going ‘cause sweet love was in the air

Wearing a hijab isn’t inherently liberating – but neither is baring one’s breasts. What is liberating is being able to choose either of these things. It’s pretty ludicrous to think that oppression is somehow proportional to how covered or uncovered someone’s body is. Both sides of this argument present a shallow understanding of women’s empowerment, which only drowns out the substantive challenges facing all women – issues that cannot be encapsulated in a debate about a piece of fabric.

I don’t know what to say, anymore. It seems that every time I log on to type up something about you (that you never care to read, anyway), I find that I repeat myself of the same old bullshit.

Last night, I ranted about how I always disapprove of my mother’s choice of boyfriends. I ranted about how she sets a terrible example for Jasmine and I, and I totally distrust her judgment and insight. The guys my mother gets involved with are always leeching off of her; they lack status, maturity, and respect. What’s sad the most is that she lets them take advantage of her, leaving people like my grandparents bail her out of financial crises.

I proceeded this rant by noting that what bothers me the most about this is that I find myself repeating these “mistakes” when it comes to my relationships. A ‘like mother, like daughter’ circumstance. You said it’s much bigger than that, but if I feel like this is the core issue, I should work on it. You added that sometimes you wish we could just break up already so that we can get whatever we need to get done for ourselves without having each other distract us.

Well, you’re a fucking douchebag for saying that. Exactly what is it that YOU need to get done for YOURSELF, Devin? Is it trying to get off probation? Is it taking care of your family? Well, last time I’ve checked, you’ve been doing that for years, and it seems as if my idea of progress is way different than yours. I know exactly what you do when it comes to graffiti, and although I believe that there are bigger crimes for the police to worry about, I still have to understand and accept the reality of it’s illegality and the unpredictable consequences along with it. I already know what I need to get done for myself, and although I am not happy at the school I’m currently enrolled in, I’m going to persevere because it’s a responsibility and privilege of mine to get that degree. It annoys the living shit out of me when people automatically assume Devin when I bitch about being homesick.

I can never keep it together on these text posts. Probably because I have SO much to say in such little time. Every one wishes for chocolate (ew), roses, life-sized stuffed animals, tiffany bracelets, random surprise visits, and perhaps diamond-anything from their boyfriends… I don’t, at least not from you, in particular. I just wish you can grow up already. By that, I mean express the creativity I fell in love with in a different, more respectable way. I wish you will start to think of others before yourself in ways that require sacrificing illegal pleasures.

But most importantly, I wish you can interpret my lectures, tears, naiveness, and submissive/loyal behavior (aka the fact that I’ve been riding with you this whole fucking time) as my belief in you, my love for you, my faith in you. But you don’t. Which was why I walked away in tears last night, as you were packing a bowl, and why you will not call me today and probably not for a while.

I’m sorry.

I bet if we dusted her heart for fingerprints, we’d only find yours.

There has always been violence in art. There is violence in the Bible, violence in Homer, violence in Shakespeare, and many psychiatrists believe that it serves as a catharsis rather than a model. I think the question of whether there has been an increase in screen violence and, if so, what effect this has had, is to a very great extent a media-defined issue. I know there are well-intentioned people who sincerely believe that films and TV contribute to violence, but almost all of the official studies of this question have concluded that there is no evidence to support this view. At the same time, I think the media tend to exploit the issue because it allows them to display and discuss the so-called harmful things from a lofty position of moral superiority.

But the people who commit violent crime are not ordinary people who are transformed into vicious thugs by the wrong diet of films or TV. Rather, it is a fact that violent crime is invariably committed by people with a long record of anti-social behaviour, or by the unexpected blossoming of a psychopath who is described afterward as having been ‘…such a nice, quiet boy,’ but whose entire life, it is later realized, has been leading him inexorably to the terrible moment, and who would have found the final ostensible reason for his action if not in one thing then in another. In both instances immensely complicated social, economic and psychological forces are involved in the individual’s criminal behaviour.

The simplistic notion that films and TV can transform an otherwise innocent and good person into a criminal has strong overtones of the Salem witch trials. This notion is further encouraged by the criminals and their lawyers who hope for mitigation through this excuse. I am also surprised at the extremely illogical distinction that is so often drawn between harmful violence and the so-called harmless violence of, say, “Tom and Jerry” cartoons or James Bond movies, where often sadistic violence is presented as unadulterated fun. I hasten to say, I don’t think that they contribute to violence either. Films and TV are also convenient whipping boys for politicians because they allow them to look away from the social and economic causes of crime, about which they are either unwilling or unable to do anything.

A plant is not thinking: Tomorrow I will put a new leaf to the north and then next week when it rains I will grow a metre taller. Its existence is just unfolding out of itself spontaneously, naturally, unplanned. Similarly, your true life unfolds in the same way but you are unaware of it because you allow your mind to imagine fanciful ways of being and then pursue your projections. Like this, you began thinking and strategising your existence rather than simply experiencing your natural being. We cannot breathe tomorrows, breath today. Therefore, knowing this, leave your existence to existence and start enjoying your cosmic play. Best of all, don’t try to be anything at all. This is a secret few recognize.

driftwoodking:

Perhaps, this kind of isolation that’s razing all fuel for possible human connection to the ground will bid you creased petals of farewell someday. Like those little hypnotic ploys wanting to steal one’s consciousness, this kind of sequestration chanting you words of security with your eyes closed unmindful of the underlying threats will give you your death kiss. Nightmare, they say, isn’t only for the ones who are sleeping.

You tell yourself you are fine over and over again till you fake it and fall into a deep dark slumber under the comforts of suffocating blanket of kicking defense mechanism. It will be too late for you to realize that this routine painful waking come daylight and numbing falling at nights are all a slow tragic erosion of your being. The yawning beats of your heart will tell you so echoing the despair of your mind in chains intertwined with blinding past and fearful future. Presently, you’re dying. And you don’t even know.

The thing is this kind of death won’t knock, won’t even announce its attack. It will raid your vulnerable entries, will sip every leaking drop of life out of you. It will slither into your walls of protection you’ve come to believe were built so high its capacity to guard you is absolute. It will skulk there inside you like sharp boas’ eyes preparing for the bite and the kill: slow, sure and most terrifyingly, irreversible.

So you frantically search for that space that would be deaf of your hysterics, of your impending doom. You shout it on your thoughts. You even scribble it on your skin so you would be able to gaze at those words and make sense out of it hoping you’ll find liberation that’s long been hiding. You write the ticking bomb away. You write so furiously trying to contain all words for a goodbye. And you fail. Always. But you try and try because that’s just how it is till it tires your limping spirit. 

And you will realize that after you’ve come to fill the surface and drop blots on spaces in between, the paper didn’t talked back. It selflessly devoted itself to you. You yearn for that kind of person but the world continues to disappoint you.

And then you remember that torment inside is taking its toll. You have to deny it its satisfaction. 

You need me. With your few last breaths, write on me. Welcome me into your short-lived journey.

(Source: inkchase, via whitekittymilk)

The shock of the twenties is how narrow that window of experience really is, and how inevitable it seems both at the time and afterward. At some point, it is late, too late, and you are standing on the sidewalk outside somewhere very loud. A wind is blowing. It’s the same cool, restless late-night breeze that blew on trampled nineteen-twenties lawns, dazed sixties streets, and anywhere young people gather. Nearby, someone who doesn’t smoke is smoking. An attractive stranger with a lightning laugh jaywalks between cars with a friend, making eye contact before scurrying inside. You’re far from home. It’s quiet. All at once, you have a thrilling sense of nowness, of the sheer potential of a verdant night with all these unmet people in it. For a long time after that, you think you’ll never lose this life, those dreams. But that was, as they say, then.

The other day in my Philosophy class, this guy brought up the event of the Boston Bombing. Before I could roll my eyes and think, “how cliche,” he explained that his mother had participated in the Boston Marathon back in ‘07. After thanking the fact that the tragedy didn’t occur back then, in addition to having his mother running in the marathon this year, he asked us why does the media, or us, glorify more tragic events than others? Why do all the major news broadcasts focus more on one event rather than the daily shootings that perhaps a neighborhood in Oakland or West Hollywood go through?

This post isn’t going to be about the answers to his question. The answers are obvious and varying, but I want to talk about what’s so anecdotal to me. In our discussion, this girl mentioned that one of her best friends attends Boston University, and her friend literally left about 5-10 minutes before the bomb went off to work on some homework back in her dorm room. “I just get the chills thinking about it, and I’m so glad she’s ok now, but I can’t imagine what would have happened to her if she hadn’t left,” my classmate said, as she started crying. Afterwards, this guy, Jay, who frequently participates in class discussions & makes valid/respectable points, added that he understood where she was coming from because his father & grandfather would have been on the same exact plane that hit the Twin Towers on 9/11 (his father had forgotten his wallet and therefore missed that flight).

Now, of course this appealed to my pathos, because I couldn’t imagine if that was one of my good friends or my dad, of all people, who would have dodged those attacks. However, what I received out of all this is just another short, yet broad lesson in six degrees of separation. I was just a couple of degrees away from potential victims of the Boston Bombing and 9/11… In fact, I was actually a couple more degrees away from the suspect whom planted the bomb next to my classmate’s friend without her knowing. I don’t believe in, “it’s a small world,” in the literal sense, because I know the world has so much more to offer in terms of culture, issues, people, places, galaxies, perhaps other forms of life. I do believe that we are all connected in some abstract way, in a way that does not involve expensive technology at our fingertips, in a way that actually requires human-to-human contact, in a way that passes us by without us realizing it. We just have to be aware of those around us and embrace real-life.

Sublimate me. Elevate me. Meet me in meatspace. Meet me at the bar. Obfuscate me with alcohol. Burble in my ear. Whisper prelinguistic psychobabble in my lobe like a lullaby. Titillate me. Bewitch me. Tickle my funny bone. Run your thumb down the inside of my elbow. Squeeze my bicep. Hard, right? Yeah, I’ve been working out.

Kiss my lisp. Kiss my ellipsis. Take me home. Charm my pants off. Rock my socks off. Verb all my clothes off. Scratch my back. Suck my tongue. Torture me with tenderness. Murder me with sympathy. Tuck me in and watch me dream about you.

Wake me up. Order me around. Speak to me only in imperatives. Sell me yourself. Wow, that’s quite a sales pitch. Gurl, you are so cybersexy. I fit your target demographic, and I like your personal brand. You can market to me anytime.

Fold me up and put me in your pocket. Dissolve me in data. Entertain me with mild stimuli. Text me. Sext me. Touch my touchscreen. Watch me twist into focus. I’m an antisocial butterfly. Socially mediate me. Trap me in your silky web. You like the internet? I like the internet too, let’s be best friends.

Decimate my meatscape. Drown me in your honeyed voice. Drown me in a tub full of candy. Pour some high fructose corn syrup on me. Smother me with your heavenly body weight. Crush me under the unbearable lightness of your being. Unfurl me like your favorite archaic scroll. Crack me open like a fortune cookie and read my insides. Vivisect me. Eviscerate me. Cut me up into thin slices and eat me like a mango. Gnaw on me in a raw reverie. I’m just kidding. This is all just poetic hyperbole. Please don’t eat me.

Walk across my cobblestone heart in your cruel stilettos. Trip me up so I fall and cut open my palms on the concrete. Make me swoon. Make me giddy. Make me vulnerable. Peel away my armadillo armor. Fill up my headspace with hope. Let me let my guard down. Send me mixed messages. Confuse me. Be my muse. Amuse me. Ask me questions. Tell me stories. Laugh at everything I say. Mention your fear of commitment. Start pulling away. Suggest let’s just be friends then never see each other again.

Ignore this. This isn’t for you anyway. It’s for someone else, I swear.

Forget me. Wipe me from your memory. Uninstall me from your brain. I wish I could do the same. But I don’t want eternal sunshine. I washed my clothes and sheets and the skyline but I can’t get your scent out. Everything beautiful reminds me of you. You’re undeletable.

I’m getting super annoyed now when professors ask the class for their thoughts/opinions on events and controversies. No, I’m not advocating for college classrooms to just have students sit there, silently, and take in lectures without questioning. No, I’m not dissing the flow of ideas. But that’s the thing… does it really have to take a college classroom to have this exchange of ideas? Does it really have to take a professor to challenge someone to ACTUALLY critically think? Yes, I do appreciate this kind of “freedom of speech” per se, and usually the people who do input their voice either have something valid/respectable to say or (and this may be my cynical side talking, whatever) they are just spewing out some “liberal” non-genuine things because it makes them appear to be SOOO different and intellectual. Dude, first of all, fuck you; you only think you’re a “liberal” (clearly, there is no concrete definition for it) because you can fucking afford to be (wealth-wise; it’s not an oxymoron, figure out what I mean by that). Second and most importantly of all, you’re what makes this so annoying because I can guarantee that prior to a college setting, your narcissistic ass could not give a shit more about being tuned into globalization let alone “critical thinking.”

I seldom say much in classrooms. Not because I’m ignorant nor stupid nor insecure.. but just because 1. People have already said what should be said 2. Theres no use in debating/”teaching” those who just appear to be fucking stupid when they actually open their mouths. I guess this whole thing isn’t the right way to approach this. My main argument is that I can have deep, “intellectual” conversations with those outside of college and any kind of institution. Because that’s the way it should be.

That’s not to say that I don’t want to love and be loved; just to say that it’s no longer a question of “You complete me.” What I need now, which is so different to what I needed ten, five, or even three years ago, is not filling, but a use for my fullness. I want someone that will push against the wall inside me where I’ve spent all my time repairing the spidery cracks spreading across the surface. And when the destructive veins behind to reemerge, I want someone who will stand beneath me, holding the ladder I’m climbing to reach the blemishes, handing me the tools I need to smooth out the puckering in the paint as I go.

I don’t want anyone to complete me anymore, regardless of whether I feel complete or not. All I want is to be a girl standing in front of a boy, eyes full of tears, professing my love, and with ultimate resolve say, “You extend me.

On the L train I stand alone. On the G train I eat grapefruit. On the A train I try not to fall asleep but I learn to rest my eyes the way the rest of the adults do and I clutch my purse tightly while I do it. On the 1 train I look at different girls’ hands and think of your hands.

I don’t like the majority of the girls here at school because they are always asking each other about their boyfriends/crushes/guys-they-hooked-up-with and how that corresponds to their desire to get married after college and their dream spot of where they would get proposed to. I can’t help but assume that they grew up wealthy and privileged and witnessed their parents having successful marriages. I cannot entirely relate, especially in the context of my parents & their failed marriage after whatever number years. This annoys the shit out of me because this majority of girls are just living under the delusion of expecting to find their rich & good-looking husbands in the same ways their parents met & live happily ever after. I REFUSE to befriend any girl like this because she needs to get her fucking head out of the clouds and realize that there is so much more to life than wondering if you’re going to marry your douchebag boyfriend/hook-up.