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o issue 10D (#41) o www.xenith.net x o
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o august 9, 2003 e o best of out-of-xenith issue o
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s i n c e j u l y 9 , 1 9 9 7 .
circulation : 4,000
"What makes a book great, a so-called classic,
it its quality of always being modern,
of its author, though he be long dead,
continuing to speak to each new generation."
-- Lawrence Clark Powell
...
megan ë , ¥ ' } ; ø - ` î ¨ { ` Þ * ' ¸ ñ ` , - » ` ]
o o o o o out-of-xenith : february 3, 2002
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Megan didn't understand
what it was like to be fifteen by jen
and in the tenth grade (ann_ar_kist@yahoo.com)
lonely and alienated
still reading children's books
She watched me take a
path somewhere
slowly self destructing
and Megan
she sat unnoticed
when my mind slowly caved
when she walked in
on me
washing blood from my arms.
She didn't understand.
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"I respect faith, but doubt is
what gets you an education."
-- Wilson Mizner
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again ! @ $ < , % ^ , & * ( ) _ + { ` | : " > ? }
o o o o o out-of-xenith : july 14, 2000
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He stared at her from the corner
of his eye. Violets screaming in his by Justine
ears. He just wanted to touch her. (AquaLady85@aol.com)
New sunglasses were a kick; at
least she couldn't see where he was looking. He wanted to know her better, she was a mystery to him; all smiles and laughter, nothing ever seemed to hurt her.
(If only he knew.)
Sometimes she just wanted to forget about him. It hurt too much to see the serene boy sitting there with a far away look in his eyes. She wanted to be inside of him, to know what he felt, to know what he loved.
Those were the days she made an effort not to talk. She didn't want to say something that could possibly bring down her friends. They had their boyfriends, their kisses whenever there was a second to spare. She only got them on days so far between she had trouble recalling the last time they were alone. But it's not like she could forget. Perhaps he was the one who didn't remember.
(It's not fair...why does it always have to escalate to this?)
He could still feel the way she held his hand. Soft fingers entwined with his. He had lowered his head to smell her hair, and he hoped she wouldn't notice. He held her in a loose hug silently for an hour even though it seemed like seconds. It's what he wanted.
(What are you doing? I'm watching you dream.)
She glanced his way and he smiled. Maybe it would work out after all.
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"It is the job of thinking people not
to be on the side of the executioners."
-- Albert Camus
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rhythm ] ; @ . å / ; $ ' ^ ç \ * ( ) , _ ê . ; [] . " )
o o o o o out-of-xenith : may 20, 2001
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Emancipation is temptation and my reflection
reflects so easily
I want to live freely freely freely by eli rosenblatt
(gearheadmtb@aol.com)
Emancipation Jazz!
I'm sitting in my backyard
There is a large kitchen cleaver 2 feet in front of me planted in the grass and it just wants to cut the man's crass attitude and put a bop bop sha bop in the step
of the world
my solitude is
being free like 40 thousand honey bees
buzzing like mingus and miles around the back of my wet behind the ears
neck...do you see it?
with burns and sears surrounding the night I sit upon.
playing and reading miles davis discographies as I write a poem among the grass
this is a pain in the ass
what is with the problem of the days?
can this pass?
and what do you have to say
about the problems of the nights?
does society bite?
is my creative behavior a figment of my imagination
or is my solitude just frivolous mental indignation?
emancipation jazz
I wanna live freely
freely
freely
bop bop sha bop be free with me
but people are apathetic
this is pathetic
I feel
pathetically jazzy tonight "emancipation jazz...
WE need to be free.
change act up y'all."
the
people's lips to let the boat sail
the trumpet wail
or should we all bail and shut our eyes?
we are people in a solar system
planets who revolve around sons who have been left to play with legos
among the stars
and bars
in their backyards or cities without any time to breathe
don?t leave
my intention is still on the grass to be picked up by me.
because they are not going to be productive and conductive
but maybe I will CUT and mince my motives
since we can only seem to sit in our backyards and write about being free like the kisses of a saxophone wail.
emancipation jazz - you wanna live freely
freely
freely
with me?
put a bob bop sha bop
top off the purpose in life
a in chains?
long pouring rains?
is this backyard
is this mind
thirsty?
this is too tiring for me.
act up : love with me I need
emancipation jazz.
I'm freed freed freed!
this is America with backyard and mania
this is not Tasmania
this is America
and I see that I sit
in my backyard and shuffle away my time like playing cards
when people are being terrorized by cops and shards
of glass are being thrown down 3 story buildings
and cutting the souls of the people
like the blades of grass in my backyard seem to cut mine.
I need to be nine again, playing baritone saxophone for world peace in schoolyards.
emancipation jazz.
free to love free to be free to see this is for
we need to wake up
Is this jazz too abrupt?
or can I stick with it like a cause
that sticks to the ground and fires up the youth
and fills voting booths
like coffeehouses on a Friday night when WE SLAM!
Remember Emancipation is temptation and
the bop is a good message
for the lesson of active youth that
want to rock it like weezer
play it like duke
this may be a fluke
and the world is still there
begging to be picked up and looked at
but I don't wanna
hurt anyone!
I play on behalf of the pacifist youth
who object to military aid
and we need more money for AIDS
because we need to free ourselves.
emancipation jazz.
I'm free
and free
to be
me.
WE need to be free.
act up y'all.
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"It is the curse of talent that, although it labors
with greater steadiness and perseverance than
genius, it does not reach its goal, while genius already
on the summit of the ideal, gazes laughingly about."
-- Robert A. Schumann
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late nights on the bathroom floor = [] \ $ ; ~ #
o o o o o out-of-xenith : october 20, 2002
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Why can't I ever say rape? Is it such
an ugly word? No. It's because I still by rachel
think it was my fault. (rachel03prez@hotmail.com)
I lost my mind that night when I came
home and tried to wash away what he'd done. I wanted to die. If I could have just sunk to the bottom of the bathtub and stayed there, either to watch the uninteresting ceiling the rest of my life or maybe just drown and finally have that face-to-face chat with God that I've been meaning to have, maybe I'd be all right. Maybe I would be better.
I can still see the clouds of red waving around in the water, as I tried to wash him away. God, it hurt. Letting my fingers rub at the places he'd torn my flesh--so sore. And when I closed my eyes, all I could see was his face. Brian's ugly, cold eyes, unfocused, blurry, angry. I don't think that will ever go away. It's a scar on my mind, gruesome and raised.
He left more than one. Every morning I look in the mirror and see it--the little present I got for screaming. His fingers tightened on my mouth and nose--I couldn't breathe--swallowing over and over. No, this can't happen. The blood was running down my tongue in my panicked swallowing, and the scream I released, the metallic-flavored buzz in my throat, will echo in my mind forever. It will never go away. God will never forgive me for the things I'm guilty of.
I remember lying in bed that night, I knew a piece of me was slipping away.
Everything about my body was tight and locked, but there was something escaping from my eyes, my mouth, smothering me as it poured out. I rose unsteadily and went to look in the mirror; my reflection was wild eyed. I wasn't there. I gripped the sink and knocked my water glass to the floor. It shattered like a roll of thunder in the silent house. I picked up the pieces hurriedly, wanting to get back to bed before anyone could come to check on me. A shard dug into the soft flesh of my finger, and I pulled it out. The shudder that ran through my body was nothing short of an arousal, a need, a rush. I had betrayed my body several times before, but it never gave me this feeling. I stared at the piece of glass until it seemed to wink at me in the yellow fluorescence of my bathroom. The blood was running down my finger and pooling in my palm. I had decided. Maybe just this last time.
I drug the shard across my forearm, letting it slice my flesh and bleed away my confusion. I made three more cuts, and as I went back to bed, I concentrated on the pain of my bleeding arm. I fell asleep so easily. Too easily.
I'm sure God hates me right now because I'm lying here bleeding again. An ugly ritual I've fallen into. It's like a pit, and there are so many of us trapped in it. We deserve the pain; we need it to feel alive. I am a cutter, and my need to feel alive accelerated with a deadly force some time ago. I believed that I had unconsciously created a horror story of my own; I had created something to validate my frightening urges to hurt myself. Did I go out and become this person on purpose? It had to be all my fault; where else could that fault lie? I couldn't reason why I needed this. My parents loved me, they just hated each other. My friends cared about me, but they just didn't understand.
I was using razor blades and
carpentry knives for their efficiency "I'm sure God hates me right
after I learned how to handle the now because I'm lying here
pain; how much I could stand before bleeding again."
I went too far. But after he hurt me, I
was cutting myself every night so I could fall asleep, so I had something to concentrate on, something that wasn't the nightmare. My body suffered more than ever before--my thighs, hips, stomach, arms, and breasts had scars deeply etched into them. Luckily it was the dead of winter--long sleeves and sweaters hid my secret--no one had to know. Until it happened. Until he happened. He makes me sick to my stomach. I want to throw up right now.
February. Three months after I lost my innocence, I met him. He wasn't an incredibly attractive boy, he wasn't an incredibly smart boy, or even an incredibly nice boy, but I was feeling very lonely and all together too self-contained. I felt like I needed him.
February 20th. It was our third date, and we'd been to see a movie. I remember exactly what I was wearing. I remember what perfume I wore, and I remember making one of the biggest mistakes of my small, unguarded life. We walked from the theater towards my car. I remember he pushed me up against it and kissed me much the same way Brian had. That should have tipped me off early, but it didn't. I was so stupid.
He drove us to a building, actually behind a building and told me to take off my clothes and let him look at me. I was not amused. He proceeded to take them off for me. Filling me with nonsense about how much he cared about me, how beautiful he thought I was, how much he wanted me. His hands were unbuttoning my jeans, touching my bare skin. Nausea--a wave of disgust cascaded down my body--I had heard all this before. My heart was pounding, he was moving me, my seat was laying down, and he was on top of me. His lips grazed my collar bone, he sucked at my chest, as his hands worked my jeans off my hips. "What are you doing?" I finally asked. What was he doing--oh, God.
"Rachel, don't you want me?" His fingers slid down between my newly exposed thighs, and he let a finger dip inside me. "I can feel how much you want it," he said as he took my hand, pushing it into his crotch, "Can't you feel what you do to me?"
I whimpered, not knowing what to do, a tear slid down my cheek. He didn't notice. "Rachel, won't you let me show you how good you can feel?" And at that moment, I betrayed myself. I said yes. I said yes when everything in my body was screaming no. And the only difference this time was that I let him. I let him fuck me, contort my body to suit himself, fill me, stretch me, tear me, hurt me with every vicious thrust. And when it got to be a dull kind of shock, I remember looking out the window of my rocking car and thinking I must be the most wretched human being on earth. And I still am.
That went on three more times. His insistence, my apathy. My friends all thought I was in a normal sexual relationship, and that I was the instigator of my newly found experience. And that was how I wanted it. I wanted to be only a slight step beyond normal. And then I found my limits somewhere. My sister called one night and told me she'd seen Matt with another girl. How could he do this? Wasn't I giving him enough already? I ached all over. I needed my razor blade. I just needed to bleed, and it would be okay. Just bleed. The words flowed over each other in my mind, until I had carved them into my flesh. Just Bleed. One word to each breast. Just Bleed. So he could read it the next time he felt like using me. They are still there. I can see them right now; ugly words on pale flesh.
And then I lost everything...
It was supposed to be a surprise. I met him at the mall, and he was half an hour late, as usual. He told me to follow him, and where did we end up? The cheapest motel in the entire town, where he had reserved a room. My girlfriends had all been telling me I just had to relax, enjoy it, try to have an orgasm. Poor girls--they knew nothing of the hurt, nothing of the double-edged sword known as sex. He undressed me slowly--was he trying to be romantic? That's when he saw my breasts. "You know, you're fucked up," he said as he turned on the TV and acted disinterested.
"No more than some," I said as I crawled beneath the covers. He turned to me, angry, and threw them off me as he unbuttoned his jeans. I just looked at him. He didn't even really undress himself, he just kind of held me down like always. "No," I said as he pushed his way inside me. "Please stop. I can't do this anymore. You're hurting me," I whimpered. And I knew my heart would explode right at that very second, only everything was black.
God is merciful, even then, even now; I don't remember the rest of that moment.
I woke up as the water hit my face. It was so hot, and I remember wanting to fade away, burst into a thousand pieces and leave everything behind. He propped me against the wall--I was sliding. Red...blood, blood...blood? And water--running down my legs.
Shower--I was in the shower. So hot. My skin was pulsing--red, too hot--and I'd lost my mind. I needed that, didn't I? No. He was gone. No. Better not to think. The churning in my stomach erupted; vomit splashed onto my thighs, running down with the water...blood. I hadn't realized I was crying. Hot. I crawled out of the shower and sat there on the ugly, puddled floor, rocking back and forth.
I can see myself, naked and lost. God, it hurts.
Home. I had to go home right then. I stood up and walked out of the steam and saw him sitting on the edge of the ripped-apart bed. He looked at me and started to get up. The strangest moment in the world, when I raised my hand, so calmly, tears running down my face and he sat back down and watched as I slowly dressed myself and found my keys.
"Rachel, what happened? Are you okay?" Even then the words sounded hollow, and I never have felt more empty.
I walked out that door, slowly, carefully, not sure when I would start to ache inside, like before. So I drove. I went home. I rolled my window down and let the cold March wind dry my hair. My mind went blissfully silent, and as I walked inside and said goodnight to my suspicious mother, I was so calm. No one would ever have to know what I am. No one has to know, and here I am, here I am again on the bathroom floor.
If I bled on the bed sheets, Mom would be angry, but if I can stay here--here on the cool tile floor--and try to forgive myself, everything is okay. Sometimes I look at the self-inflicted scars that line my body; I think there is no right there. But when it gets dark and late and God, I'm so lonely, I look at the skin on my inner forearm and think how it's so paper-thin. It should feel swollen, hot, red, bleeding. I need it to feel that way. I need to feel the heat, the bite of my razor blade. I need it to find that calm place where I can breathe without a nightmare taking over. Sometimes I realize there is no escape, and that there never will be. And then I worry.
I worry and wonder what I can possibly do--I'm so afraid to die. God can't ever forgive me, because I can't even forgive myself.
It's just another night on the bathroom floor.
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"Friendship marks a life even more deeply than
love. Love risks degenerating into obsession,
friendship is never anything but sharing."
-- Elie Wiesel
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