she pulled away, shaking.

she lay with her head pressed against his chest. her hair sprawled to the left, spread out like thick strands of rope, displayed across his shoulders. he began to pull his arms tighter around, and she shook.

she said "no, no, no" and he said, "what?"

she attempted to pull herself up, but he had kept his arms in position.

"what's wrong?" he said, with a degree of genuine concern.

she took in his scent, and decided - "this is the safest place in the word, and this can't be the safest place in the world, and it can't be, because you're going to hurt me, and then this won't exist anymore, and then i'll be devastated, when i lose the safest place in the world, so no."

"i'm not gonna hurt you?" he says.

"no, you will." her voice got frantic. "you won't want to, but you will, and you won't mean to, but you will, and i might, because we're all human, and people fuck shit up. it's just what happens, so no. no safe places in the world."

that time my dad was filming, when he caught me in bliss

drunk texting, a couple of nights ago.

i couldn't tell. apparently, i was supposed to play. i was just offended. "i just wanted to see how far you'd go."

...

but yesterday morning, My World Renowned Guilt Trip sets in. At work, he takes over tasks without telling me, lends a helping chivalrous hand without my asking. Of course, I could be reading too much into things. that is what i do after all.

but then after i break the ice, and tell him straight forward, "remember, when you were an asshole this weekend?" and we move on. and i make him laugh. and at one point, i feel dizzy, because i'm sick, and sort of feeling feverish, and his brow furrows, and he reaches his arm out, and places his large hand, across my forehead, and i crumble into a tiny little girl. "you're not getting a fever."

"remember, when we met last summer?" his straight face molds, his nose crinkles, and he forcefully represses a smile.
"oh my god, what is that?" i say. "is that an adorable half smile? are you being adorable right now?"
"shut up."

and the way, the crowds around us watched us arm wrestle - he with his boxing arms, and me, with my fragile wrists. it was funny, it was fun, but mostly, when it was over, and his hand slipped out, i felt the heavy sweat of a very nervous little boy, who had been technically holding hands with the girl he liked for a couple of minutes.

but again.

i have been known to read.

there is a price that most, (if not all?) artists have to pay

in order to be a producer and creator of art. and there are many pop cultural figures who would counter to to such a theory, but i still identify a type of sacrifice on the artist's part. as a casual photographer, i spend quite a bit of time, behind a lens. making aesthetic judgments on what i perceive. this in turn, eliminates the ways in which i control my perception. i can offer you many stills and shots, of your personhood, and in doing so, i am responsible for that presentation.

is art constantly an experience of self-sacrifice?

no.

look at beyonce.

but maybe, in the mediums i choose to participate in - i lose the artistic capacity to construct my personhood in a specific way. i could try self-shots, and i could spend more time writing on myself, than on the other characters i surround myself with - i could, but i doubt i'd be as good at it. what i mean is, i'm better at perceiving and portraying that which i am objective to experiencing. my exterior judgment, accounts for the way you (he or she that i surround myself with) are presented to the world.

it's like that perma joke my friends make - that all their cool facebook profile pictures are owed to my camera and i. but when others are looking at these photos, no one knows that i took them. that it's my perception. they read what is featured in the photos themselves. him, her, they.

also. no one ever takes pictures of me.

patiently, i exist.

"alright, i'll come meet you at four" turns into, "okay, come here, she really wants to see you."

she would first appear to us in a sari, with her head in a tight bun, and bold black lined eyes. we would be timid children, confusing our evolution as something near the brink of adulthood. this was a mistake. she knew this, so she came in, with her handful of texts - laid it on the table. and said, "well, hello. god is dead." later, at the end of class, i will scurry up to her, with my arms wrapped around my books, and my blue v-neck, floral shirt. the one that cut down real low, (because i was on the brink of adulthood, see?). i rushed up to her, eager to ask her about every aspect of her life, and how i come to be where she was?

today, i know the answer is self love. then, i just understood the possibility had finally presented itself.

she handles most situations incredibly delicately - with a sense of patience and briskness. so, i go meet them - and we sit at a table, discussing all the questions that had been bubbling in my head at that time - that i was too fearful to ask. all my brown questions, i call them. i say, "you won't answer any of them!" she pauses, smiles, slowly nods, and says, "i'll answer them."

but before the walk - before she decides i have an issue with specifically coloured men, and before she acutely summarizes the complexity of brown skin on white skin, ("what's wrong with white men? they're just a lot of... pink flesh.") - before that, there is the flinching moment. the moment that sticks with you, and that you think about for days after.

clearly, we are, eager for "advice" - whatever that is. and there we sit - two accidentally heteronormative women, and one homosexual male. and so the two women lament over men, and this generational issue of not being able to participate in any sexual experience with men - without sacrificing some degree of intelligence. (even when we are willing). and she turns to the woman across from her and says "it's not that hard," and then turns to me and says, "but you'll have to be quite patient."

i flinched.

here's to y'all

Dearest,

i don't capitalize, but i aspire to be a writer.

i don't write, but i aspire to be a writer.



then there was the time i was sixteen - no, fifteen, and afraid i would never know what

life now

is

like.

future anterior.

it's odd writing freely, and openly, in a public forum. and yet, there lindsay and i sit, in local italian cafe, dipping our biscotti's into our milky lattes, and i urge her to be honest. that the greatest things i've ever produced, have been grotesquely honest. that people love that shit. eat it up. your insides. and to not hesitate, for a second, to vocalize the stuff you thought you were supposed to keep in your under things. it's why sex sells, and all stories have sad parts. "i'm telling you - people love honesty." but it's the fear of being googled, and the way your feelings can certainly feel raw, and come out in messy, incongruous, fragments.

i keep the heating in my room at an all time high, so i can walk around in my underwear.

i was raised in the most middle of ethnic grounds, in a non-conservative, islamic-layered, household. my mother put on a scarf when she prays, and lets me wear mini skirts when i go to my punk shows. and somehow this - this combination of veil, and punk, has come to summarize the totality of my supposedly unique existence. but i know there's a lot of others like you, now. this is digressing. this is for my other blog. but so that's a bit of me, that is in fact supposed to make up all of me. and then there's the part when i was fifteen, and i sat at home, in a sort of brown tween-prison. not at camp, like my white friends, or on vacation, like my white friends, or with other friends, like my white friends.

so i guess i was sort of lost.

and obsessed with kurt cobain at nine, because my older, hero, of an eighteen year old sister was. so that's a bit of me. i had about twelve different online forums to talk about my individual oppression. the way i was sure i would never understand or feel woody allen movies, and it's attached lives. what's a museum, and a latte, and a classic black dress, mean to a brown, grungey, 9 to 15 year old, anyway?

drinks with the girls.

i do this now.

girls.

i am one now.

and then there's the part where i sit in the dark and write about my, "feelings" certain, that what i'm really supposed to do is write Bossypants II. Or at the very least, the less critically acclaimed, prequel: Pushover Skirt.*

i told you i was sort of, kind of, maybe, funny. idiots.



*this freakishly summarizes my current age / stage in life, to a frustrating 20 year old, T.

thanks for your time.