The story of T.

Stranger: "Oh, what big biceps you have!"

T: "The better to carry around my emotional baggage with..."

~The End~

Honored.

Today:

There was a debate for immigration in one of my classes. My group unanimously voted me speaker. I was caught off guard. Afterwards a girl says,

"I don't know how you can major in Political Science..."

I reply,

"Um, I can't--I'm an English Lit Major."

"Oh, I just figured you studied Political Science because of they way you were so informed on the topic."

Yes, I am informed. Yes, I read immigration theory. But why this idea that in order to inform yourself on a topic, you must study it in school.

No, it is my brown skin and la viaje de mi Familia that causes my interest in the subject. It is the exodus of my people that causes me to inform myself. It is the discrimination they face, and their troubles I take for granted that instills an obligation in me. It is my grandmother's story, her pain, her risk, her life. It was the first generation's struggle that has allowed me to live in a third floor, exposed brick (fireplace included) apartment in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Chicago, sipping Pinot Noir with my roommate.

I do not study the things I study because I have an interest in them, or because school forces me to. I study them because they are more a part of me as the melinin in my skin, and the breath in my lungs.

Thank you Grandmother.

-T

No Obligation Instilled.

Ok, here we go.

So whenever I start to blog, I have a list of things I want to address when beginning. The funny thing is that when I actually sit down, I'm at a loss of words. My fingers can't possibly convey the incredible amount of Feeling happening in my heart, mind, skin, bones. Everything feels. From the bottom of my pinky toe, to the follicle of my eye lash, everything feels. It's quite the phenomenon really. But anyway, now that my momentum is gaining inertia, let me begin.

C: He texted me recently. Out of the blue, I get a text. My night?: ruined. Well, not ruined, I exaggerate. But I was smacked in the face with a catalogue of emotions I had put away in my nightstand.

Why?

He texted me, and I wasn't ready to hear from him—not yet. Just when I put his shadow behind me, he jumps out from behind a bush and scares the living daylights out of me. And now here I am, trying once again, to shove his larger-than-me body back into a dresser drawer. I finally deleted him from my facebook. I needed to. Does that make me Immature? Yes. But am I feeling better from not constantly checking his status? Yes.

Now time for a little self-validating:

I'm 21, smart, and cute. I have a personality that warms the hearts of people everywhere (a bit stand-offish at first, yes, but warm nonetheless). I have a strong grounding of the reality around me, that albeit, is probably the locus of my neurosis.

Ok, now for the critique:

I'm an idiot, a martyr, and have absolutely no language to verbalize my emotions.

Haha. Yes, this is me.

I understand why he couldn't handle me. It's not even the fact that I still have emotions for him (although I do). What really hinders my progress is the fact that I actually let myself grow intimate with him. Never have I felt this. The Three before him were mere possibilities, a need to find out if I could be intimate with them. They were a Willingness, whereas C was the actual act. I let him in to my paper house and he ran in circles with a flame torch in hand. And now, my home is tattered and in great need of patching up.

God T, when are you going to give it up? It's been months and still you feel the need to negotiate emotions about him on your blogger. Fuck.

I'm an idiot. And I'm proud of it.

 

Ok, now to move on. I've always had these visions of grandeur, that one day I would write something epic. Something that would stop someone in their tracks and have them see a shade of the rainbow they've never seen before. I wanted to make their skin scream with understanding, and their hearts beat for the first time. I've grown up since then.

Now, all I want to do is write for the sake of writing. I'm unconcerned with epic. No, Truth now guides me. I want to sprawl my soul out onto paper and spell out the universe in an anecdote. And when I say "guides me" I mean the vision of, not the actuality. Haha, I'm far from being where I need to be to make sense on paper. My writing is nothing more than a precursor for the man I will one day be (again, a new refined vision of grandeur, haha).

I can't stop thinking about a verse from Stephen Crane's "War is Kind." It's insane:

 

XXII

A man said to the universe:

"Sir, I exist!"

"However," replied the universe,

"The fact has not created in me

A sense of obligation."

XXII

When the prophet, a complacent fat man,

Arrived at the mountain-top

He cried: "Woe to my knowledge!

I intended to see good white lands

And bad black lands,

But the scene is grey."

 

Do you see? This is true brilliance. No epic, no fantastic eloquent deviation, but just truth. My field is grey, my heart burns with it.

Ok, I have shit load more to say, but I've procrastinated enough from my Finals. It feels good to write again, Blogger. You are my vice.

-T