what is your relationship with god?

july 2024

sunday evening. we're chilling in front of our house after a full-night celebration of my birthday. warm summer night, england just lost to spain as i heard through the doors of our local bar, i'm flushing down meaty sweet cherries with a bright red watermelon monster energy. incredibly high and tired, bored of any other topic of conversation, from my k-hole to another's i'm shooting a question: "what is your relationship with god?". i know my answer and mostly want to talk about it but it's easier to bring it up as a question. people stumble through fried neurons and disparate associations coming up with barely coherent poetics.

"what is yours?". a fabric of reality, a connective tissue between subjects and events that erases the boundary between them.

later that night i throw up red.

december 2024

sober for 3 months. depressed, isolated, no meaning, no purpose.

cj the x in their essay "6 shapes of god" reminds me that god is what people gather around, connection between them, a point of worship besides ourselves. a meaning. 

later that month i'm in highlands in a rented motorhome escaping new year parties and ex-friend's birthday in the darkness of the northern winter. among the books i brought with Christina Rossetti's poetry collection. i got it a couple years before, but felt too stupid to read poetry. now is the time. the book opens on "who shall deliver me?".

        God harden me against myself,

        This coward with pathetic voice

        Who craves for ease, and rest, and joys:

Romans 7:24-25:

O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

i find myself reading about her, researching the requirements for joining a monastery, reading scripture. horses' video on exorcism and christian mysticism adds more fuel to a growing undefinable at the time feeling.

february 2025

in a campervan in france. writing on the topic of roots for a poetry contest leads me back to the imagery of fabric. i finally put it properly on paper solidifying this idea and shaping my interest in it.

        you will always forget. you have to forget.

        no being can survive the full view.

        the gardeners of the cloth
        cutting, mending, patching, stitching
        day in, day out
        you have to make a choice. then make another one.

        trace back what you can. pin it for others.
        behind every mark a movement.
        behind every movement a mark.

        the fabric shifts and folds and tears and seals.
        move, feel the tension,
        make a choice to unknowable consequences.

        the fabric persists,
        and so do its gardeners. 

june 2025

cj the x comes to the uk with lectures. easily juggling philosophy, theology and a deep understanding of modern culture while being apologetically queer and non-binary. they tell how often people would credit them with allowing themselves to join a church, following through on that yearning, that pull from inside the solar plexus into a lived religious tradition while staying true to their queerness. it is allowed, it makes sense. god loves as all and wants us to live an authentic flavourful delicious life. there's no contradiction.

        falling in all the lines, into all the places. following the thread, leaning towards, facing all the walls and all the corners.

        the treasure is in the eye of the beholder.

        unfolding formulated unexpressed. releasing. separating desire and pathology.
        i do care and it’s good actually.

        recognize impulses. let them play out. embrace the consequences.

september 2025

preparing to celebrate one year of sobriety. getting ready to come out as lesbian and non-binary. i still have never been to a church service. a two days before the sobriety dinner we go to a counter-protest against march for life. i see people holding "christ is king" banners shaking their rosaries at us for defending our right to reproductive healthcare. it scares me for a moment. i know that christianity is not that, but i'm scared to be seen as part of that. mortified.

next day. it's sunday. i wake up early. today is the day. i find a nearby church and go to a service. i am incredibly lucky. it was their patron saint day, St Mary's. the priest explicitly mentions palestine in prayers, pleading for peace and safety for all people.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

a communal lunch after. i am at the table with other young queer-looking people. too shy to speak, startled by their inviting kind attention. scared. but i keep coming back, sunday after sunday. the faces become familiar, become family. sundays become days of reflection, of coming back to what matters, to my truth. but i still mostly keep it to myself, talking around it when asked by friends and housemates, telling only the closest ones. 

march 2026

everybody knows now. even my parents and the most atheistic friends. sometimes i see surprise on their face, sometimes curiosity but never disappointment. 

i'm sitting in front of the house having the last cigarette of the day with my friend. he is honoured to be my sponsor at the baptism. 

i am home. 

home is where the heart is.

recently i started preparing for my trip to ireland. the plan is to visit a few churches and monasteries, collect inspiration and make some artworks, which then my best friend can produce into an exhibition. he is irish. i'm not.

in preparation i asked him for a couple of books on land and mythology, so i have some foundational understanding and cursory knowledge of shared symbols and ideas before i dive into learning about the establishment of christianity in ireland and about her saints.

i brought one of the books to my bed, ready to read, but something in me suddenly snapped. a familiar spiral unfolded itself under my feet and i fell into it. how dare i dive into somebody else's history when i don't know my own? why do i spend so much time being a guest, when i barely know anything about my own country of origin? where is my home? what is my home? why do i feel shame for being interested in somebody else's home? especially if he feels like home to me. shame shame shame shame shame.

And where was home to you? 

And where did you feel safe?

And where was home to you?

What kind of place?

            porridge radio - pop song 

what is home?
oxford dictionary says:

where do i live? where do i receive care in safety? where do i flourish?

i listed everything that came to mind: places, people, music, activities, smells, cafes, tv shows, objects, rituals etc. places and experiences that felt familiar, that soothed my anxieties, that provided comfort in one way or another.

i lamented over how some of the things that were supposed to be integral to me are no longer such. in my first few years of living in the uk i kept saying that my soul still spoke russian. now i have to actively force myself to journal in russian, as most of the conversations i have and most of the media i consume are in english. sometimes talking to my parents i find myself struggling for words describing my experiences, purely because i never had these experiences back there.

some of the places that felt like home before are no longer available. i moved on or they simply don't exist anymore.

"home is where the heart is", - kindly adds compact oxford english dictionary. where is my heart then?
if i find my heart, i should be able to find my home.
it's hard to grasp it. my heart oscillates anxiously whenever it's looked at, hiding itself in a fog of motion blur from curious or potentially judgemental eyes. i know it knows what it loves, it knows what brings it peace. regardless of how much i try to obscure its voice, it always finds a breach in numbness and shines through, guiding me towards a better life.

last week in my local church we were discussing the holy spirit. that voice that calls us towards our vocation, towards higher purer ways of existence, towards a clear-eyed and clear-minded life of service and worship.

there is a song i love, a soundtrack from a soviet coming-of-age movie. its name is translated as "magnificent afar". the last verse goes like this:

i pray, that i'll be more clear and tender, 

and never should leave my friend in sadness, 

I hear the voice and haste after it, 

along the way without any trace.

the voice, the heart, the holy spirit. receptors and propellers of inspiration, of our movement through life, responsible for filling this earthly existence with meaning and purpose.

when i look over the list of what has brought me a feeling of home i see similarities, patterns, flavours of experiences that my heart consistently yearns for. these seem stable, even though the particularities shift and change.

• people
  what is a home without guests? without friends? without family? without momentary encounters that leave a delightful aftertaste?
• god
  i have always felt the presence of the divine powers at play. i have verbalised it differently throughout my life, tapping into various traditions and vernaculars. but that longing deep in my solar plexus remained.
• water
  so often i have found myself pulled towards the river bank or any body of water in whatever city i lived in. in st petersburg i sometimes traced the edges of the island i lived on with my steps. in london thames regularly beckons me. in edinburgh it was the sea.
• art
  whether making it or seeing it, the practice itself bring me back to the stable ground, away from anxiety, from rumination, back into the present existence, to a place where i can flourish.
• music
  many songs feel like a place of refuge to me. i would listen to them on repeat singing along, feeling them enveloping me in a beautiful energetic field.

languages, countries, people, artists, practices change. they leave their marks, their contributions to the overall tapestry of my life. but they are not in and of themselves a home. it seems to be a bit of a paradox really. home is a place of stability and safety, and yet one has to actively reencounter it, re-inhabit, make it their own again and again to keep it as true to their heart as possible.

i'm excited to learn about parts of my friend's home. after all there's plenty of god, water and art to be found there.

back to business baby

had a bit of a hiatus here, haven't i

well, many things have happened of which i want to tell you everything, but a few broad strokes for now:

- my friend and i did an exhibition in a phone booth

- finally had my spoken word show with three incredible jazz improvisers

- gave up watching youtube for lent and instead watched a bunch of amazing shows 

finally watching media itself instead of media about media (however i miss it, easter is coming, jesus is rising, 10s of video essays are waiting for me) 

- got rejected from all of the universities i applied to (huge bummer, trying to believe that "rejection is redirection")

- read a couple more books

"the employees" by olga ravn, "nova scotia house" by charlie porter and "soft tissue damage" by anna whitwham (a review of which is now live)

- my baby dog had a knee surgery, recovering very quickly

- went through a course for people new to christianity at my church. lowkey considering getting baptised, but having doubts for now. definitely enjoyed the discussions there.

soooo, plenty of updates, a lot of ideas, hopefully will write you more very soon. the university rejections definitely have brought me back to reevaluating what i want and what work i have to put in for that. getting more disciplined with my writing output is definitely a part of that. 

stay tuned. you will hear from me again very shortly. 

"soft tissue damage" by anna whitwham

        it’ll fade. we will get the sun on it.

an autobiographical work by Anna Whitwham retelling her experience of seeing her mother slowly fade away with cancer and the subsequent grief of losing her, and her intense and powerful however brief affair with boxing. the book intertwines these stories beautifully, sometimes explicitly through the use of cursive, highlighting the separate timelines, sometimes blending them into one line of reflection.

we see a person prone to fighting, familiar to hurting herself and others, choosing to channel her grief and anger into methodical and violent art of boxing.

        you’re going to get hit.

and getting hit she does. one spar after another Anna hones in her skills in preparation for her first fight, learning the choreography of fighting, feeling deeply into the strong animal nature of her body that requires nourishment and proper disciplined care. she speaks a lot about concerned and judgmental glances, so many being all too eager to give her a lecture on why this interest of hers is not normal. yet she perseveres, wearing fresh bruises and swellings as badges of honor.

throughout the story Anna learns to live with her mother no longer being there and yet being with her wherever she goes. she feels mother’s presence in her body, in the body of her daughter, in her sister.
she learns the edges of her body, its limits, its ways of healing and how she can rely on it.

i got a bit sad that she gradually decided to stop boxing after that one fight. regardless it served her incredibly. she managed to regain her lost softness, to re-inhabit the world in all her fullness, to love and feel loved again. and that’s a beautiful miracle.

time.

time with a friend. time

after rejection. time it takes

to smoke a cigarette and

look at the passers-by.

time before love. time of

love. time takes away.

time gives. time stretches

violently in involuntary

boredom. time crawls away

into her hole. time chased

away by a missing dachshund.

time of red. time of violet. time

of accepting the fundamental

mystery of divinity. time of

silence between thoughts.

time before you realise

it's not going to work out

well. time of passion. time

of misery. time of miserable

passion. time of meaty

sweet cherries. time stuck

between mirrors. time cropping

up between web-pages. time

leaping out of the window. time

before bed. time for a pencil. 

(inspired by time chapter in "Red Doc>" by Anne Carson)

why not a sphere.

this mortal flesh is such a bore

it eats, sleeps, shits

demands attention

wants care

why not a sphere

why this clumsy assemblage of pipes and boxes

full of sticky wetness

i'm hungry, i've overeaten

i can't sleep, i can't wake up

so much administrative hassle

for a container

hostile negotiations 

underwhelming compromises

just for a chance at dignified death

by the inspiration of your holy spirit.

words from the core of humanity

from the holy trinity

reverberating sending level 12 storm down my spine

and everything was beautiful

lines falling on my skin anointing me with pain and joy

the pure feeling of touch

that only the shared body could give

and everything was beautiful

jaywalking confidently through the corridors of our home

music pulsating through open windows

i take in a breath that carries histories in its blood 

and everything was beautiful

drizzle.

one of those days

where nothing stands out

life keeps going, things keeps happening

but on lower volume

less dogs in the park

no lovers leaning on the piers of spilling over thames

damp with perpetual drizzle i'm walking through leicester square

tip-toeing around barely visible puddles

no passion, no sorrow, no drama

a somber february evening in london

yearning.

desire weighing down the belly

warming me up

worming its way into the mind with fantasies

uncalled for

how much longer could the structure hold up? 

i am sieged

i am bothered

familiar ideas of what is right are on strict rations

give up or die starving

the grey inside surrounded with luscious tantalising abundance

why keep the gates closed?

how dangerous could it possibly be to let them inside?

a made up war

a made up castle

there is no surrender

no siege

no walls

you are already there

bound (1996)

nonfeeling.

crawling into nothingness

yearning for passion from the space of nonfeeling

fantasizing of violent rapture

in-between youtube videos

what am i

what am i doing

mounting pressure of inconsolable ambition in the face of inaction

treated with prolonged inaction

salvation truly lies in commitment

words words words.

words words words

so many words

inside and outside

clashing between themselves

fighting for a hold of the string

like children behind the school

for the place in the engine driver's seat

a trolley problem of ideas

which ones are you willing to sacrifice

coffee and cigarettes.

coffee and cigarettes 

cigarettes and coffee

i'm sitting in the bath softened with a lush bath oil that will later fuck up my vagina's ph level  leaving me dreadfully itchy. i leave dark marks on the walls and the edge of the bath with a dark liquorice conditioner. it's supposed to make dark hair blacker, not to dye bleached hair black but i know what it takes to bleach out a black box dye and i'm not going to go through that again. 

picked up smoking again recently trying to embody that meme about spirituality from years ago. after all i'm 6 months into my 30s.

i'm currently rewatching jim jarmusch's catalogue. this time it's "coffee and cigarettes". i need me some awkward and adorable cinema loving disjointed dialogues to soothe my wounded soul after another rejected university application. and i have to avoid crying at all costs. 

i adore "coffee and cigarettes". seeing bill murray drinking coffee out of the pitcher makes my soul dance with post-punk joy. and late Renée French who just wants to flip through a gun catalogue while sipping on her coffee of perfect colour and temperature in peace leaves me melting in all the right ways.

so here i am in the bath drinking the second black pour over of the day, smoking rolled fags one after another while refreshing the inky blackness of my hair and swaying to the poetry of "coffee and cigaarettes", nicotine always makes me dizzy and nauseous. but i'm no stranger to ignoring my body's protective signals for the sake of mundane melodrama. somebody has to keep this cinematic coolness alive. 

cinema.

an open-roof drive through this homely hell

seeking beauty amidst anxieties and instabilities

exchanging colourful shards of dreams

unexplainable treasures of seeing and being seen

leaning into cinema

all encompassing sweet drama of existence

it's sweeter next to you

the abyss.

stuck on the side of the toilet bowl

only slightly grazed by the spiralling water

dangling awkwardly

on the edge of the abyss

glimpses, darknesses, inks.

a naked tree invisible against the night sky

strange loss of agency through day cycles

demoralising yet safe

i guess the tree can't care

its alignment is unquestioned and effortless

it's not against the night sky

a glimpse of inky branches brought by a passing cloud

a disconnect between visible reality and visual metaphors

glimpses, darknesses, inks

incoherent beauty of uncaring co-existence

somebody probably cares about the tree

streamlined nervousness between undefinable boundaries

neurosis is not a sufficient theme of artistic inquiry

yet it's here regardless of the time of day

wallowing.

ten fags smoked

twenty nonograms solved

countless youtube videos watched

200 quid spent 

not a line written

is it time to go on ozempic

is it time to give myself face tats

this cannot count as a poem

but this me me me wallower has to go to bed eventually

what else is there.

an essential yearning for drama

for brutal catharsis 

amidst continuous uninterrupted sludge

clouded judgement leading to the most mundane wrong choices

a proper burst requires a fundamental break in repression

so what else is there then

if not self-perpetuating disappointment

if not barely detectable fall into abyss

too healthy for suicide

too repressed for art

life passes by

a roadkill rotting on the kerb

seabed party.

mouth full of laughter and cigarette smoke

the pit in the throat retreating unnoticed

bossing loved ones around lovingly

caring and being cared for

making plans to share more joy

the soft caress of music in-between coral reefs

you can find me in da club on the seabed

boring.

vision at twelve bright pink frames per second

one elastic shape behind closed eyes stretching and contracting to the bit in all directions

the joy lasts just about 10 minutes before the surroundings invade my world

wtf you're doing in sneakers here, lad?

boring, all boring, everything boring

this pleasure fountain is drained

"boy parts" by eliza clark

There's a soft part of your brain. A place where you're still just a child. Once someone's poked the soft spot, the dent doesn't go away. Like sticking your fingers in wet concrete.

I catch my reflection in the wing mirror. There she is, with her smudged eyeliner and her messy hair, the tracks of her hair extensions on display, lipstick on the tip of her nose and her chin. She's wet concrete gone hard, full of dents, reshaped into this *thing*, which burps and pisses and has to be washed and fed and fucked.

I look in the mirror and think: who the fuck is that? Who is she?

i borrowed a couple of books from my housemate before (in particular nora awad's "bunny"). the other day she left for a week (or five, you never know with her) and handed me five other books she thinks i might like. which is an incredibly confident move, but i accept it enthusiastically. 

this one is the first out of five. (actually she also recommended me "my year of rest and relaxation", but another housemate handed me their copy, isn't it great to have 20 housemates?)

this is yet another story narrated by an alienated creative youth. this time we're following Irina Sturges, a photographer who studied at CSM and RCA (a big fucking deal), but had to move back to Newcastle. the bitch is crazy, she is mean and manipulative, she starves herself skinny, she goes through a gram of coke in 12 hours. i absolutely adore her. as i said previously in my post about "the boys" i love a psychologically broken character who doesn't hold back their anger and violent urges. i've been drawn to people like this in real life as well, until they unsurprisingly hurt me too. but i digress. 

she carries around business cards and gives them to men she meets on her way: a suit on the bus with a dad bod, an effeminate bartender, a soft shorty behind a tesco counter. if they get back to her, she takes them to her garage studio and photographs them nude and submissive. occasionally she has to defend herself from them. often they should defend themselves from her but they want her just a bit too much to have any sense left. 

it all goes downhill (as much downhill as it can go for such a person) once she is invited to exhibit in london. we discover her history through unpacking her creative archives, while she is making new work with Eddie from Tesco. with him she violates one of her only rules: don't touch the subject, don't get handsy. 

it's a story of addiction to pain, of desire to be seen and recognised turning her inside out and leaving bloody streaks all over the country. i would definitely recommend it. 

the only criticism i have now is that the author kind of drops Irina's friend's blogs as a narrative device half way through the book. i wish there were more of them. 

otherwise i had an incredible time reading it. is it bad that it makes me horny? the last few pages coincided with friends setting up the soundsystem in the living room for tomorrow's party playing wavy dark ambient in tune to my body waving with the intensity of the resolution. 

i love irina, i love this book, i love violence. 

I look at the photos again, the ones I didn't delete. I look at his purple face, his bloody chin and nipple, his swollen cheeks. I wonder what the fuck I have to do for people to recognise me as a threat, you know? It's like... am I even doing this shit? Have I even fucking done anything? 

Like, do I have to snap the wine bottle inside him to get him to stop sending me sad emails? Do I have to cut his nipple off for him to realise he should probably ring the police? Do I have to cave his head in with my camera, rather than hit him the once? Do I have to crash his car? Do I have to smash a glass over the head of every single man I come into contact with, just so I leave a fucking mark? 

 

thank you.

your kindness startles me

otherworldly softness 

from beyond my known reality

a challenge to daily movements of regurgitating all the reasons why not

why not warm why not stable why not loved or loving

struggling to believe it yet faced with absolute necessity to do so

convinced this is my best

knowing that it's not

i stumble clumsily between shallow sorry-s

to obfuscate a candid thank you.

thank you. 

worry.

misery loves company

dreams where you keep yourself awake

sunny days behind

only wet thighs of jeans

dog hair stuck with dirt

right after grooming

why do i care so much about microfailures of interhumanity

my failures

too much worry

another day in excessive worry

constant worry

when i appear before god i would ask him why did i have to worry so much about the littlest things

anxiety is unrealistic

punishing

unforgiving

torturous little critter crawling in-between nerves

biting on neurons making them fire in all the wrong directions

worry worry worry 

it's ok

let it burn.

burn it all down 

old new

inside outside

burn burn burn

interreach with fire

melt down the edges

watch your blood sizzle

burn

spill your waxy body

all across the room

see it seeping in-between the floorboards

burn the buildings

burn the cities

catalog all tonalities of grief 

raze it all to the ground

in the orchestral victory of rage

let it burn

no revenge.

concealment is a fraught strategy

outwardly effective

inwardly suboptimal

how much calories did you spend plotting revenge

that you would never follow through

death before embarrassment

but it's too early to die

unfounded.

unfounded one is left to find 

foundational myths for others 

ungrounded and unlatched

floating through woven stories

blown by the littlest gust of bitter winds

hope is good for traction but is a dangerous thing

for a woman like me to have 

"my year of rest and relaxation." by ottessa moshfegh

I took the garbage out into the hallway and threw it down the trash chute. Having a trash chute was one of my favorite things about my building. It made me feel important, like I was participating in the world. My trash mixed with the trash of others. The things I touched touched things other people had touched. I was contributing. I was connecting. 

a curious parable of a person alienated and isolated, brought up in cold privilege, lacking any direction, meaning or drive towards a better life. 

to reset she decides to pursue the pharmaceutical magic of sleeping pills giving herself a year to sleep it out. we are reminded of a common treatment for hysterical women widely practiced at the outset of psychiatry. it doesn't always go as planned, but at least now she is determined. 

she is a gorgeous blonde thin new yorker, who studied arts, whose both parents are dead. has a friend who cares about her, but who she struggles to sincerely care about without a touch of disgust and irritation. in the background the year 2001 steadily taking its course, day by day, month by month. 

the language is a bit simplistic for my taste, it has a diaristic quality to it, a certain lack of refinement. but it didn't stop me from often deeply empathising with her inability to belong, to feel human, with the desire to fall asleep hoping to wake up a renewed better person, fitter, happier, more productive. 

self.

self hate is self absorption

self soothing with self deception

self made selfhood 

taking a selfie of oneself

straying into selflessness

for self satisfaction

self preservation through self loathing

through self harm

self obsession

self self self self self

tear the self away 

infestation.

stink bugs riding back and forth between the throat and the diaphragm 

sucking out the juicy red

leaving the crispy wrapping of a bloated ego to shatter with the tiniest vision of threat

eventually ones has to give up on gentleness 

it’s been three decades 

burn the host down

books i read during my winter scotland trip.

Émile Zola "Nana"

a story of a parisian sex-worker rising from a street walker to a high-class courtesan during the last few years of the second french empire. she is a myth, she is a legend, she is an ancient pagan deity whose overwhelming sexual force burns through the masculine establishment. men's undisciplined decadence and vain lust destroys them and the republic while Nana in her unconscious act of class revenge feeds on their finances, status, and self-respect. 

i loved all the situational prose: dates, vain conversations in salons (mostly about Bismarck), detailed descriptions of the weather. there is also a strong queer undercurrent among sex-workers, however tainted by the competitiveness of the field. 

Anne Carson "Eros the Bittersweet"

Anne Carson's first book, her dissertation on how eros is portrayed in Ancient Greek literature reworked into a non-fiction literary masterpiece. starting with portrayals of love between people, the lover's chase of the beloved and the unbridgeable distance between them during the adolescence of the written language, she applies the same geometrical analysis to writing and philosophy, to the pursuit of knowledge itself. 

it was a bit of a hard read being focused on the Ancient Greek and detailing the particularities of language that i cannot understand, so i can only conceptualise the flavours described by her rather than experience them. but it is an incredibly helpful text to have a better grasp on all her following writing. 

Anne Carson "Autobiography of Red"

one of my favourite books of all time. this was the first book of hers i read a couple years ago. but this time i decided to re-read it together with its sequel ("Red Doc>") and "Eros the Bittersweet".

a myth of one of the Heracles's labours reworked as a beautiful and heart-breaking queer story of two canadian teenagers: Heracles and Geryon. Anne Carson has a gift for keeping multiple contexts overlayed without fusing them, mixing but not shaking. in this book the myth coexists with the modern story. Geryon is still a red-winged monster living his relatively normal life and reading Heidegger. 

this particular book is so abundant with unexpected metaphors and ripe comparisons, leaving mind soft and receptive to the beauty of the mundane world. 

Anne Carson "Red doc>"

sequel to "Autobiography of Red". Geryon is now G and reads Proust and Kharms. Heracles served in the army and came back as sergeant Sad. he suffers from PTSD. here we finally see G's red cattle until Sad takes him away on an adventure, ending up in a psychiatric clinic/auto workshop based in a glacier. 

Carson experimentation with styles and forms is in full force here. she accepts the formatting accident making the text a mere three words wide column. what is poetry after all? and here we hear explicit chorus named "Wife of the Brain". 

i read it once before, about a year ago, but it was hard to follow for me at the time. as i submerged myself in Anne's other writing this trip, i could finally feel the extent of surreal imagery and human grief and care this book offers.

Mona Awad "Bunny"

an incredibly delightful magical realism novel following Samantha, an mfa creative writing student in Warren University. the workshop she attends is populated by a clique of saccharine, annoyingly affectionate girls from a wealthy background. at first she keeps her distance, hating their high-pitched mutual cooing, until they invite her to join their Smut Salon, where she discovers their dark extracurricular activities and gets engulfed in them. 

to say anything else would be a spoiler. this is a story about the power of imagination and how it is informed by life experience and intellectual rigour. who can and who cannot create convincing characters. it's a story about the writing itself told in the horror mean girls shutter island terms. 

i ate it up in two sittings, just couldn't stop. definitely going to read more of her. 

no stranger to jealousy.

i am a jealous person. envious person as well. i get possessive and obsessive. i cling tight to people to avoid loneliness. push away those who seem enthusiastic about being around me. 

anxious-avoidant. avoidant-anxious. anxious-avoidant. avoidant-anxious. 

i hate this about me. i can't escape it. 

i see people doing what i want and could do, i get bitter. the poison bubbles up and sits in my throat. i see people loving each other lightly and tenderly, my eyes tense up and get peppery. 

i got all sulky seeing my bestie having more success feeding pigeons than i did. we were seven. 

my grandma complimented my cousin's hair, i took it as a critique of mine. 

over and over and over again any sign of goodness in the world reminds me of my own shortcomings. 

it's a type of narcissistic behaviour, the most unproductive kind of egocentrism. that's how people become incels after all. stewing in their own saltiness. rotting away the days. 

i just need to get my sleep schedule back to normal. 

    

i love on-screen violence.

finished watching the fourth season of "the boys" just now. ate the whole shit up in less than a week. hate that i have to wait now till april to see the last season.

i love it. it's silly at times, of course, and the political conversation is less than subtle, but the whole drama is honey to my heart. i would forgo being vegan and being sober just to eat some of frenchie's dishes while hign on a melange of hallucinogenics. mon coeur, there is no one better than you. 

i often think whether i should psychologize my fascination with media portraying the violence of emotionally unavailable men. out loud i said "he is so me" when watching "drive" with ryan gosling. then i slurped up "the sopranos" empathising seemingly a bit to much with the cast of characters and often reproducing their inflections in real-life conversations. 

sometimes i ascribe this to being brought up as heavily emotionally stunted woman, who primarily pours all of the anger back into herself. it rots inside and leaks on others slowly, spreads a stench all over the shop. oh how i wish sometimes to just be a man prone to anger, getting into fights, receiving and giving scars rather than pursue my pathetic strategy. 

obviously would be nice to be properly emotionally regulated, grow up stable and well-rounded, brave but not reckless, assertive but not violent, forgiving but not a doormat. 

oh well, in the meantime, serve me up some of that ultra-violence, baby. 

lilly mothcub made me do it.

 first post to seal the deal. 

i've been thinking of creating a blog for way too long. always overthought the project, the subjects. overestimated how developed my thoughts must be to be published. 

oh well, may be i'll never be a "proper" enough writer to have a blog, but i'll still have one. 

current concept is to write down the conversations i have in my head. recurring opinions, thoughts and stories that haven't found their way into a face-to-face engagement.

thus welcome, everyone, to "tails of conversations" brought to you by da:ze.