New poems, new art; Sucker Punch

Been a few days; that's not good, I've been a little lax in my artistic self-discipline. I suffered a bit of ennui over the weekend. The day job took a bit out of me, I suppose.


I saw Sucker Punch, and I was more than pleasantly surprised. After reading more than a few scathing reviews, I went in with very low expectations, but I found it not only visually and aurally entrancing, but I thought the message overall was empowering and the performances decent. It wasn't perfect, but I wasn't expecting it to be the King's Speech (which I still haven't seen, come to think of it...). Anyway, I dug it. Plus, it wasn't the fanboy wank material a lot of people made it out to be. The women of the cast kicked ass in an utterly believable way; I didn't feel the "wink-wink you know the ladies couldn't ACTUALLY be this badass" of other films with female action stars. The cast apparently trained for 6-8 months with Navy Seals prior to shooting, and it showed. All I'm saying is I wouldn't want to run into Abbie Cornish in a dark alley...well, actually, I would, but for different reasons. Heh. But yeah, she was a beast. Rawr.
Also, I can't stop listening to the soundtrack. It was fantastic. Fun fact, Emily Browning (Babydoll, in the film) sang the cover of "Sweet Dreams" that opens the movie. 


Head over to my deviantart account to see some new artwork. Yay!


Here are some new poems. The second one, "Permission to Unhinge" is a WIP, so I'll most likely be posting it again soon in it's entirety. I hope.

Holy Sacrilege - 3.28.11

I’m afraid to open my mouth
for fear of vomiting viscous rage
all over the damn place
mine is a leper brain
slowly rotting away
under the pressure of near delight
It’s easy to sound smart around fools
and conversely it’s difficult to stay calm
under the abuse of monotony

everything i do makes sense
and that is confusing
i know i am beautiful in my deceit
and loathsome in my confession
it is far too risky;
when i have lived 5 lifetimes
in 5 years and spent that half century searching...
yes it is far too risky to be pure
it is far too risky to be honorable
i think i might have found what I was looking for
and my conscious demands i chance
putting it back where I found it

i am shitting the bed in an effort to escape
back to being predictably miserable
who made me unlovable but so fuckable?
That ain’t right
being so troublesome is bothersome
when you missed the lesson on being a rebel
I try to create a new picture of myself
every day until i get it just right
and stay between the lines
But I’ve got mental carpal tunnel
grasping important messages
is touch and go at best
so i am dashes of color and anger and guilt
splashed into some semblance of
some kind of person
who does not know how to conform
but is too scared to cause a real ruckus

I want to detonate myself
enrage myself
unleash this
this distortion of god’s image
this psychotic slapdash job of a person

that extreme is what it is going to take
to wake up those stupid enough to trust me
and cruel enough to hold me
and vicious enough to love me.

Maybe then they will learn.

03.30.11
“Permission to Unhinge”

Alpha One this is Charlie Company
Requesting
Permission to engage the enemy
on all fronts
Not just the front in my skull
The open front of rat-tat-tat-tat
Tattoo on my lips of the words
I keep trying to say
Do you copy? I said
Do you copy?
Do you copy the edge in my voice
as I tremble further out onto the edge
of my limits to endure
I am requesting permission
I need PERMISSION
to engage the incoming hostiles
of my making

That's it for now, folks, thanks for reading!


-C

New poetry 'n stuff. Also, Suckerpunch looks awesome.

New! I wrote this ....couple days ago, we'll say Saturday. Also, I started working on this idea I had for a short play. I had the idea over a year ago, wrote a page then put it aside. So I'm trying to start over again. It's more for me to make myself finish something (other than poetry) than to try to produce, but you never know.


Also, I'm really obsessed with the costumes and overall aesthetic of "Suckerpunch." Once I see the movie I'll probably write about female empowerment v. male fantasy and blah blah blah, but for now: PREETTYYYYY. On a related note, my hair used to kind of look like that of Jena Malone's character. But less well-lit and desaturatededly (yes I made that word up) awesome and stuff. Sigh, jealous.

The Space Where Ends Meet
3.19.11

The moments tick painfully and quickly by
as I struggle to erase the space between ends
and stand on my feet instead of borrowing somebody else’s
Bright flashes clamoring for attention,
fighting each other and trying to claw their way
to the front of my brain
in a desperate attempt to escape my mind
and I don’t blame my ideas, I’d like out too
it’s a little confusing in there
I don’t like the way words look on a page anymore (if I put them there)
My creative engine is out of fuel
Somebody poked a hole in my tank again, but I don’t know where
And now I’m just leaking dreams all over the place
it’s quite a mess; if you trip on one,
please send me an email so I can collect it
I need all the power I can muster
to fight this happy monotony

-C

"When I was a child"

“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.” - 1 Corinthians 13:11

I have found that whenever I have any sort of profound realization about my life, it occurs in the calm, in the moments between crisis, between soul-shaking emotions and fist-clenching rapid-fire thought. After a storm clears in my mind, after the winds die, and the clouds part, I see clearly. All the anxious piping voices of my demons finally cease their clamor and I can really hear myself. I can hear myself and I can hear what others tell me by their actions.
In the last 9 months, I went through several changes; I uprooted things that had been planted in me by unknowingly destructive forces and charged ahead, confident in a new sense of self. But the things  I dug out had been there so long and had grasped me so tightly that in tearing them out, I was left raw and angry; angry at the lies I had been told, angry about the wrongs done to me, and most of all, vulnerable and lost. I mourned a part of my self that had never really gotten to flourish, and did not know what to do with the remains. So for a while I sunk into a somnambulatory existence, grasping for the straws of my childhood, feeling lost and isolated and incompentant. I missed certain lessons growing up, and I didn’t know how to teach myself.
After a particularly dark day(both literally and figuratively), and tears welling from an anxiety I couldn’t articulate, I enjoyed the good company I was fortunate to have and breathed and let it pass. And that’s when this passage from 1 Corinthians appeared behind my eyes (Ya can take the Catholic out of parochial school, but....). I can’t get back what I lost. I can’t be a child again. I can’t relearn those lessons in the way that I want to. So I must accept the responsibility of the gifts I have, and the opportunities that have been granted to me, and rise to the challenge. I am indescribably lucky to have the people in my life that I do, and by allowing myself to savor that, and to realize my own potential as the determining factor in my life, then, I can do the things I have the potential to do.

Peace

-C

Must be the weather

Felt really shitty all day and most of yesterday. Thanks a lot, Uterus. Thanks a lot. When I get my period, my hormones get wonky and I get depressed and anxious and prone to meltdowns. Plus the weather sucked today, which didn't help. And I have a migraine that keeps traipsing in and out of my brain, at random. I've never gotten migraines with my period before. What's up with that. Anywhoist, here's a little something I wrote to get the Blahs out:
Ummmm, we'll call this....I Hate Everything. Yeah, that'll work.

It’s so hard for me
to live in any kind of unity
with myself or anyone else
when at any given moment
the bottom drops and I can fall
in the middle of class
in the middle of work
Just slip and start drowning in my confusion
Me! A perfectly rational, mature adult (supposedly)
And yet so prone to inexplicable moisture
emanating from the optical area
for no apparent reason.

Hope you're having a better day than I! On the upside, I edited my work resume and am going job-hunting tomorrow. Go me!

Peace

-C

"Know Thyself"

This next poem was written 9 days before the most recent piece I posted (see: Abortion Debate & Depression Stigma).

If you're a writer of any kind I encourage you to go back and reread your material. Since hitting puberty, all I can remember is a roller-coaster of mental and emotional instability, and I didn't have the tools to express what I went through on a monthly basis. I was confused, angry, self-loathing, fearful, ashamed, and for a few reasons, I didn't think that was abnormal, even when these maladies affected my performance in school, my friendships, and so on. These destructive emotional patterns and ways of viewing myself recycled themselves throughout high-school and into college, with occasionally severe effects.
It was by journaling (at the encouragement of a few teachers) nearly daily that I was able to express myself (and eventually start writing poetry, such as I am posting now) and start to understand my own mental process. If nothing else, it helped let off the pressure; release the steam and enable me to cool off. This past summer I read about two years worth of my own writing, and was able to identify a lot of cyclical behavior, in an a relatively objective way that facilitated my personal growth. Now, if I could afford a good therapist, you bet I'd be on the couch faster than if you'd told me you'd procured an advance copy of Trueblood Season 4 and, do I want to come over?, but because my waitress/bartender/artist thing, shockingly, isn't paying for said therapy, writing shall have to suffice for now.
I by no means think that we should all run around diagnosing ourselves (Damn you WebMD! The nightmares you've caused! *shakes fist angrily at the heavens*), but we should not always have to leave it to a professional to ask why we make certain decisions, or why we feel a certain way. A degree of self knowledge can be attained through carefully and attentively looking inwards at ourselves, by daring to dig that giant rock out out of the mud and take a peek under it. Sure, there will be a few worms and beetles hanging out, but they're so little in the big picture. Once you heave that rock up, you can expose the earth to sunlight again, so new things can be nurtured into existence. It's only by diving into that dark, rich earth that we can plant a sense of understanding and peace with ourselves.
-----------------

Tablet of Unutterable Thoughts

10.9.09

what do I see in my dreams?
how to begin and how to end
the answer to the unanswerable question
how do i explain what i dare not say aloud
for fear of frightening away the light
I fear the abyss of warped faces
and bloody traces of my identity
(if i even have one)
what do i dream that keeps me drugged in uncertainty
smothered in inability
to express or connect or color the wasteland of my subconscious
can you guess what horrors I give birth to?
what absurdities I breath life to?
what reprehensible, incomprehensible
inconsequential evils I rest with?
I sleep alone and am not isolated
my demons keep berth with me
--------------


-C

Where Are You St. Patrick?

St. Patty's, for a long time in my family, was the biggest holiday of the year. Don't get me wrong, we did Christmas and Easter big, but for the celebration of all things Irish-American, the Sunday closest to the holiday, we would all wake up early and, after attending mass, start decorating the house with Shamrocks and greenery, and my mother would start cooking. We would put forth a spread of cold meats and cheese, soda bread (which I know how to bake, btw, and it's damn good), sugar cookies in Shamrock shapes, lamb stew, triple layer cakes, fudge cake and Irish coffee for the adults.  Then about 40 of our friends (adults and their kids) would arrive in the late afternoon. Irish music played on our CD player all day, and everyone stuffed their faces. We kids would engage in war (the girls vs the boys chasing each other around the yard with sticks, basically) whilst our parents got silly on the Baileys in their coffee.


As we got older, the parties became more and more subdued and ceased to be the affair they once were. Some of the reasons for that are good, some bad. My parents both quit drinking, so understandably, a holiday that has become (for many) simply an excuse to get fucked up was not something they really felt like getting excited about. I never remember my parents ever getting really drunk at our parties, but the association was still there for them, I can imagine. At any rate, the parties that make up some of the fondest memories of my childhood, faded away.


For a long time, I was rabidly proud of my heritage, and in some ways I still am. When I moved to NYC, I looked forward to St. Patty's, sure it must be even more exciting in a town with such amazing nightlife. The reality wasn't what I expected. My first St. Pat's here I got extremely sick, and the little drinking I did exacerbated the problem, so I stumbled back to my dorm and passed out around midnight, and was horribly sick the next morning, so bad that my teacher sent me home (I'm sure she thought I was just really hungover). The next one, I was in rehearsal until 11, and only partied a little, with people I didn't know very well, at a party that wasn't even about St. Pat's. I don't remember what I did last year, I think I worked. It wasn't memorable at any rate.

This year, I find myself at work again, sitting in the office at my bar, adorned in festive garb, while drunken sports fans reel around the bar upstairs wearing green party beads, "celebrating" a holiday that probably means very little to them. After reading this on Gawker, I found that I agreed almost wholeheartedly. My Irish heritage is something very real for me, and while I like a party as much as the next person, it irks me that the holiday has been turned into "Excuse to Get Obnoxiously Drunk For No Reason Day." I will not begrudge anyone their partying, but for myself, I want to make the holiday about more than just drinking. Maybe it's just nostalgia for what once was, but I would like to, in the future, make the day about actually celebrating my ancestors fight for recognition in America, make it about eating Irish food and listening to Irish music, and while I cannot by any means Irish dance, I want it to be a real celebration and not just an inebriated shit-show.


Of course, holidays in general have been hijacked by corporations in America, and St. Patty's is probably the least of them. But it's the one that is most personal to me, so next year (or perhaps this month if I'm able to budget it) I will host a celebration that is about what St. Patty's used to be for me: a day about Irish culture, family and amazing Irish food. Though, I'd probably be kidding myself if I said I wasn't going to crack open Guinness. 


Have a great and safe evening lads and lasses,


Slainte,
-C

Abortion Debate and Depression Stigma

This is really two posts, forgive me.


Currently really thinking through the abortion debate and trying to back up my position. I was raised Roman Catholic and Republican, I attended the March For Life every year and was an outspoken anti-choicer amongst my friends. Even after I moved to NYC and started having sex, and became more liberal in my social views, that was one issue that I always thought I would remain unmoved on. 
Then, something changed. I don't even know what, exactly. Perhaps my brain was finally ready to flex and see how the other side felt, ready to really examine the arguments outside of a biased environment. So I started pondering, and musing, and I came to the conclusion, at the end of a 4 hour conversation with my friend G over beers in Brooklyn (check out the Cherry Tree, cool little spot) last summer, that the argument was unsolvable. How can you define what makes a person? Isn't that the ultimate philosophical question? What are we? Isn't it a little arrogant to think that we can define it? And if you decide to legislate off of any theologically based argument (you cannot scientifically determine "sanctity of life"), doesn't that destructively start to blend Church and state?


Now, I still have a lot of thinking to do, and I am hesitant to take a strong stance either way currently, as I would not be able to defend my position. But, prompted by my brilliant sister, M, I am really trying to give this debate the proper amount of critical thought before I throw in with anybody. M can debate circles around me in terms of politics and philosophy, so I've got my work cut out for me. But, though I disagree with her, I am grateful to have someone to push my buttons in a non-threatening way; a worthy counter-voice who will actually make me think, rather than just attack me and tell me I'm going to hell. Additionally, I wish the greater political scene would behave like me and M, and have civil, rational discourse, rather than name-calling. Sigh. Anyway.


------


On a completely unrelated topic, I'm going to start posting poems I wrote from way over a year ago.  I have to admit, I'm almost a little embarrassed to post them, as they are quite "dark", and I suppose I'm still a little afraid of the stigma attached to "angsty/emo/depressing" material. Or, depression as whole, for that matter. But guess what? People get depressed and think horrible, dark, shocking things in their low moments.  Odin knows, I have. So, while I always appreciate constructive criticism (and will not discourage it simply because the subject material is very personal; all of my material is, so critique away!!), I'm really posting this to do something for myself. 
There is still such stigma around mental/mood disorders, and a lot of misinformation and confusion. I myself have never been professionally diagnosed with anything. I do know that depression (as well as alcoholism, a oft-time symptom of deeper emotional problems) runs on both sides of my family, and I have struggled with incapacitating bouts of "down" feelings, and suicidal thoughts on and off for a couple of years, as well as intense manic periods. I have them mostly under control now, as a result of confronting things from my past that were worming away in my subconscious unfettered. I'm sure I will continue to address depression/related topics frequently. 


Without further ado, this is "H(a)unted," written 10.18.09 (that fall was a particularly tough time for me).

H(a)unted

It’s awake now.
Sometimes it curls up and
retreats into a cave of memory
and imagination
Leaving me unburdened as
though I had just woken and realized
“It was only a bad dream.”
I smile and sigh, feeling
a little foolish;
fretted over something I had
clearly only imagined.
My step frees, my body light with the ease of liberty!
My words roll out without care
My voice heard and unrestrained
I feel like everyone else must feel
Then -- it stretches, unfurls itself in my chest
and crawls up my throat
mid-sentence.
Ah. There it is. It WAS real.
And it’s hungry.
My true folly was presuming I had escaped
That I had found the way out without incident
How arrogant.
You would THINK I would learn that
When dealing with a predator
One’s survival depends on out-witting it
Killing it if need be.
It does not simply lose interest,
for it is driven by a desire
more primal than yours.
It does not just want to survive
it wants domination
consummation
of its ancient drive to destroy
it does not simply go away
And by forgetting its presence
I took another step back into
its slavering maw.
“Remember me?” it growls
as it tightens its claws around my breath.
All too well, my friend.
All too well.

------

And now, I leave you with this.

Peace and kittehs,

-C

Kitteh

"God Must Be A Kitten"
10.9.10

I have, altogether, far too many questions
and queries and curiosities about
Things that make sense to “everyone”
And yet no one at all
and every institution and theology and system
is so firmly settled in so many willing, desperate, terrified minds
that to begin to unravel the crisscrossed strings
of fact and fallacy is not a task many will accept.
Perhaps they fear that the ball of yarn, once undone, reveals
Nothing
at its center
And that Nothing would so shake and shatter
every assumption their entire lives were built on
that they prefer to leave everything a big, colorful, tangled mess.
If only I knew how to weave my undone yarn into something beautiful and real
and show myself
(and maybe more than myself)
that the lies are worth untying.

-------

-C

MAN

For now, I'll most likely be posting a lot of old material. It's interesting to read, because I think back to the state of mind I was in, what I was feeling, and if still applies. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Anywho, here's the first of many to come:


I wrote this a little over a year ago:
-------

1.9.2010

MAN

I wanna bruise you
I want to sink my canines into your silly man soul
and lick the insides clean
I want to take all that warmth and goodness and stamp it
on my crazy bitch heart
I want to squeeze myself into your stability and sanity
so when I trip you fall too
I wanna bruise you
I want to make you bleed and ache and slap me as hard as you can
so I know I'm really here
I want to open your sweet man smile and push my hurt into it
So you taste what my fear is made of
I want to open your sad man stare and let the demons peek out
so I know I'm not the only one
I wanna bruise you
I want you to choke on my ashy lungs and breath in my dust
so I can sleep without coughing
I want you to split me open with your strong man strength
and pull me apart with your lust
I want you to hold me like there's no yesterday and definitely no tomorrow
and let me hide myself with your body
I want you to bruise me
I want you to bury me
I want you to burn me until there's nothing left
I want to bruise you into burning me and turning me around and showing me that it doesn't have
to be
so scary.
Please bruise me.

-----

-C

This is my blog...

There are many like it, but this one is mine. My blog is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. My blog, without me, is useless. Without my blog, I am useless. I must write my blog truthfully...*

Alright, "useless" is a bit of an exaggeration, but I have discovered that when I do not write my other creative expressions suffer. Similarly, when I do not draw, my writing suffers, when I do not act, my drawing suffers, etc...

So I have created a new blog for myself in the hopes that I can discipline myself into writing regularly, that I may stretch my creative muscles to prevent them atrophying.

I will use this space to share my poetry, prose, opinions and information I find interesting/useful, etc.

I am an actor, and artist, and sometime writer. Since graduating in Spring '10 from my conservatory, I have been rapidly and drastically evolving into the person I always thought I could be. It is a difficult and yet fulfilling journey and I look forward to my further development, as a person and as an artist. I am a moderate liberal feminist, who is very interested in social justice, art, sexuality and self-expression. If you follow this blog, I hope you find it entertaining, informative, and interesting. When it comes to my creative writing, I welcome constructive criticism.

-C

*That is the US Marine Rifle Creed, edited, obviously. My eldest brother is a US Marine, hence the reference.