bayn writes

[Last night I wrote this in the black scale hardcover journal.]

This is my handwriting. It changes depending on the mood I’m in, what I’m feeling. Which can happen in the middle of writing a letter of a word. I write, think, and talk in the english language. The language I have come to know, it does not belong to my people, it never did. It belongs to the people who oppressed and dominated my people, and still do. I’m trying to relearn the language that I first knew. The language that will allow me to caress the finer, richer details of my culture; that will allow me to delve into the minds and souls of my mother and father; that will allow me to understand more fully the whys behind some traditions. I told my mother that when they die I will make an altar for them, and for others in my family as well. I told her that I will put coffeebeans into a pretty little bowl for her. She asked me if I would be afraid when she comes to visit me. I told her I didn’t think so. Today I told her I didn’t want to be making that altar any time soon so she better lower her blood pressure. I love my mom and dad. Con thuong me vua ba nhieu lam.

This I’m adding now. My mom shared with me that she thought after her generation there would be no one to cúng for them - to make offerings to those who have died. I’ve had this thought myself long before she shared that with me and I also considered that it crossed her mind from time to time. The thought of my parents having already come to terms (or coming to terms) with the knowledge that after they die there will be no one doing for them what they have done for those before them and those for the ones before them and so on (but possibly still having hope that it won’t be that way, I hope), makes me stricken with guilt and sadness and disappointment and all these feelings. I envision their souls and spirits wandering and seeking a place to which they can return, visit, and find peace because that is what they know to do. Now I can’t conceive of a place I would call home not having a home within for my parents. This is the way we do it. This is how we nurture the spiritual being within ourselves, the source of our vitality. My mother is my example, every day her walking waking being, breathing the air of incense, she believes she is a child of buddha.

[This is crossposted from my livejournal where I decided to type it. For old time’s sake.]

[ETA: When re-reading this post I take note of things that stand out to me. I write in the first few lines about how is it that we can forget such difficult times. When I read that a second time it stood out to me; I expressed that sentiment from a place of privilege and that statement exhibits it. With that statement I assume all people share a similar experience when really some people face very different realities and my place of privilege affords me the possibility of not seeing the more difficult struggles others experience. So that’s one thing that stood out to me that I felt I had to respond to, for myself.]

I mostly don’t know what to say after reading many many entries from ago. One thought that does occur in my mind is how can we forget such difficult times in our lives? Difficult, crucial times in our formation. Also, what kind of youngun was I? Christ, I don’t intend to invalidate my younger self, I was kinda funky. Certainly I haven’t lost the funky, the funk has simply aged. Reading some of those older entries served as a bit of food for thought, providing me with clearer details of topics pertinent to certain recent thoughts. In one particular entry I speak of divisions in character, personality, mind. Intertwinement. There was more, but it’s easy for me to forget at this late-early hour, the hour toward which I always unfailingly gravitate, sleep-deprived, mad-eyed. Either in the same or different entry I mention something about believing myself to not have a grasp on tools of persuasion/manipulation connected to charisma. I find it interesting that I said that. I wonder what I was thinking, behind the curtain. Because in my opinion it holds true that I was charismatic, innocently unknowingly so, likened to an infant’s grasp of charisma. My tangible self was just an instrument of adaptation. I wasn’t aware of this, I didn’t fully understand the workings behind it or the effect it would have on me over time. Ok. Breath.

For a long time I could not interact with others as myself. I didn’t know how to. Eventually this caused me great amounts of anxiety. I was constantly hyper-aware of my surroundings when not in my home. Registering faces, movements, sounds, tones, moods, reaction. I was creating a map that would allow me to navigate and to a degree control interaction with other human beings. This kept me on the fucking edge and I never knew it. So I was rarely interacting with others as absolutely myself. I think the motivation I had to do this which I don’t think I was fully aware of at the time was that sense of control. Control. Therefore I hated it when a situation spiraled out of my control. But what the fuck? I mean, unnnnnreaaalistic. I didn’t have this verbal clarity. I simply felt emotion. I suppose it’s nice to now understand the workings behind all those nasty flashes of anger, self-loathing, burning in my head sensation due to the instances of lost control that I would get. The desire to maintain that tight grip on a sense of control over interpersonal interaction meant staying on edge, which meant additional anxiety that I didn’t know how to deal with. I seriously wonder if I’m reading too far into it. I stand firm on the belief that I was invested in having that sense of control and would become upset when it was jeopardized. Those are feelings I can vividly recollect. So I think I got to a point where I developed a persona to portray a general exterior of me. The one I would work off of in sub-situational interaction. Any moment in which I was alone it was as though I unmasked myself. Zipped down and stepped out of a layer. Transparent now the thoughts running through my mind, able to be seen on my forehead. Whenever I was alone my thoughts would speak aloud to me. I was this whole other being in solitude. I left school but I didn’t leave those pieces of me behind. When I developed a relationship with M. while I was still with Martina is when it went to the next level. I was severing the fissures in my non-bodily self. For the body was merely an instrument. I was finalizing the fragmentation. I was forcing myself to be separate people and it was fucking me up. The night I ended things with M. was the night I confronted myself. This is where the “I reached out to the evil in me” piece comes in, you can get to it at baynwrites.tumblr.com. I don’t think there has been another day in my life where I cried that intensely. I had also never been that close to that high of a risk of severely injuring myself. There was no ounce of rationality in my being at that time. I had lost complete control, more than ever before. I was falling apart. A disintegration of the fragmentation I had become. I sharpened that large kitchen knife with a wooden handle and I held its tip against my taut skin. I cried and cried, couldn’t stop. Tears soon mixed with blood and I had this split open fat-revealing cut. It’s kind of disgusting. I went to sleep that night with a towel between my legs because I was bleeding there too and a towel wrapped around my arm. I had decided that night that I would shave my head in the morning. I needed to see myself bare. I felt bare. I felt hollow, empty and blank. My eyes were so swollen that morning, christ. I must have looked like shit. I like/d to describe it as a meltdown. I imagine concrete structures melting. Helplessly melting. I felt that it was slow like melting. The way I imagine you can feel melting. Oozing too. Messy. The way I was in the days following was nothing I had ever been like before. It was absolutely surreal. When I spoke there was only one voice, one lens, one filter, one option. It was me. It was weird. Straight up weird. But fucking fascinating. I can honestly say that I haven’t felt the same since then. I mean, I’ve changed from whatever I melted to, of course. But the certain traits that marked the pre-melted me, I don’t have them. I’m not on edge constantly anymore. I do have to remind myself to relax and that everything is going to be fine when it comes to interacting with people because I get anxiety about it. I don’t know what else to say. It’s 4:06am and I can’t keep my eyes open anymore.

There will be no blood this time. We are stronger now after we became so weak. We see more now after we were so lost in the Darkness. We had to cut ourselves apart to become one. We had to cut ourselves open to let the Evil out. The Power. The Strength. Of Bad. We had to cut to See. We had to cut to cry.

But now we are okay.

I am writing for myself. I am writing for me.

I write for myself. I write to breathe - to live - to feel - to see

I write to feel to hurt to get hurt out to let hurt hurt

You may be watching but I am doing this for me

In my mind I see you watching But this is for me

Feeling like I have to protect myself from my inhibiting awareness of audience. The audience in my head. I have to work to free myself of the constant concern of What will other people think? What does it matter? Really. Your life. One life. A life. Life. Time’s illusion. Short long, passed so fast. You cannot live your life inhibited by the fear of others’ opinion of actions and words not yet taken or spoken. Your entire life. Fear. I remember reading a little bit about what Audre Lorde said about silence in The Cancer Journals. It struck me.

This photo captures me in a period between episodes. That morning I woke, shaved my head, showered, and went to work after a night of holding a kitchen knife against my arm, and purging my body of…. something I can’t presently describe. That night I inflicted two more.


I left college with those three which I incurred within two nights. It was anger directed toward self and other, it was incompetence.


This is my left arm. It’s all there, from the beginning to the end. Layers, hidden messages.


I made the first scratch when I was twelve. I had a severe meltdown at nineteen, last winter. Nothing was ever caused by my cutting. My cutting was the thing being caused. I never learned ‘good’ coping mechanisms, forms of expression. My temper didn’t have a gauge to be read and cautioned; I would simply implode. Triggered. Not a dent on the surface. That’s all I really feel like saying for now. My head hurts.

I’ve only recently begun thinking about what it would be like to intentionally channel my writing energy into.. something. Writing has for a long time been a way of coping for me, yes, but never with purposeful intent. So I wonder what difference would come out of -choosing- it as a coping mechanism. It’s exciting to think about and I’m very curious. It’s something I’ve thought about when thinking about school and classes. Still something that triggers anxiety in me. Just stress. Currently I’m in richmond, indiana visiting friends at earlham college. After this I head home to California to figure out the next part of the plan. The neverending plan. I’m excited to go home. Somewhere between ecstatic and indifferent. Excited to see my puppy. Familiarity is always welcoming. Even into darkness - I think. Still in transition, floating, waves of cloud rolling underneath my body. Not quite settled. Will one ever be? Who’s concerned about that, though, eh? Why be. To take control of your self in the moment and be pleased with life. But how? Not always. But if you can. Why not. If you can.

After travels, in philly. Figuring out things. One more stop then home. Haven’t written in a long while. A little rusty with transforming thoughts to sentences. There comes a time when you pause to question despite the fear that you might fill with doubt. Because it’s a necessary part of the process. The process of moving. Moving up forward down. Never sure what I’m talking about. Some thing, some thought, some idea trying to eject itself. Never sure why I lay my hands idle on a keyboard waiting for something to happen. Should I leave when I don’t feel good? Or is right to keep going until a good feeling. Well let’s see. Putting up the drywall before completing the frame. Having the wrong nails. Making it work. Hoping. Blinders. Don’t worry so much. Everything will be fine. I’m not that stressed. It’s all going to work in the end. Life is so short, the world is so small. It’s all a dream, a stark reality. You’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. I’m sure of it. In the moment, it’s always worse, think beyond it. You’ll get through, a little struggle, a little tough, pull some complicated strings and you’ll get through. Breathe. Your family loves you and they will help you. You’re lucky in that way. Everything is okay.

So elegantly, delicately,
roll from the tippest of your tongue
they form from the most intricate
creases of the corner of your mouth
to where your soft sun-kissed lips
touch as they close.
Words flow, effortlessly,
Neverending
Streaming from your effusive smile
in captivating swirls
As I nod and tilt my head
So elegant and delicate in every roll
and every cluck of every syllable
of the pronunciation of every word
You transform the clash of every -er
and the echo of every puh
into the subtle softness of every
shhh.

So elegantly and delicately do you speak to me.
With soft tones and soft words.
Warm hands and warm eyes,
You stare at me with endless understanding and
forgiveness.
I feel that I don’t deserve this.
Your generosity far too much,
Your overwhelming hospitality.
I refuse! I refuse what I know I don’t deserve.
But you insist! You persist.
And I cry, but you don’t pat me on my shoulder and
tell me lies, and give me false hope.
You hold me. You hold me tightly with both arms locked
around this physical existence trapping my soul wanting to
escape this world.
You kiss the back of my neck. The warmth of each kiss
comforting my troubled soul.



Source: dark grey corrugated cardboard cover notebook, circa highschol.

I have never felt as far from you as I do now.
You are not even a friend, a lover, a partner.
You are simply a distance.

I think I have put up a barrier against you. The moment I could see that your emotion matched the words I heard you speak to me,

words which
rendered me
consumed
engulfed
in pain
with such a force
that I had never
before experienced,

Something went numb, dull, dark inside (of me)

The pain I felt killed the love I had for you.
Is that possible?

Or is this numbness?
Will it reside?

I still feel sadness. We are so far a part in many ways.


————————————————————— (different entry, same date?)


Now I am numb. My numbness manifests in smiles and skips, a jolly spirit, a pulsing heart, veins flowing rushedly.
A titter-tatter is my numbness.

It is quickness
flashforward blindness
There is no looking back
We forget to survive
cold existence
at times.

This ink deceives you and me.
Evades burning truth ill evil.
these words cover the mouth of the guilty remorseful repenting
suppliant weak the Good Honest Truth
I sit here trying to tell lies to tell truth to tell lies


(next page)


Manic Mind
The Honest Truth (is a lie)
The Descent


The sooner (we)(I) accept (embrace understand know) change as the only permanence in life, the sooner (we)(I) live better (more freely liberated enlightened joyously unburdened worry-free, understanding

To know change as the only permanence
is to not covet                        Resistence to change is a cause of great sadness         not envy                         Aversion                                                                                  begrudge                 Rejection
               spite
               dwell
               long yearn

Your happiness sadness solace contentment complacency anger void stillness          staleness stagnance fragmentation incompletion consummation
         unhappiness hopelessness helplessness significance insignificance impact

                        WILL CHANGE
                                    BALANCE


(next page)


I reached out to the evil in me.
The evil is a part of me.
With me. Present.

We can choose but do we have a choice?
Do I get pleasure? And so much pain.
It is a part of my human capability and I will
explore it. I will reconcile the severance.
I will not neglect the thing within me which
surrounds me. I will not pretend to be all good.

I lied to you. I told you lies.
I betrayed your trust in my honesty and goodness.
I did things that would hurt you if you knew about them.
So beautiful, tragic, and devastating our time together has been.
Perhaps it is too ideal to imagine eternal relationship.
Some things must come to an end. All things must
have balance. All things. All things change. All things.

It just occurred to me as I was remembering today’s date that four years ago on the eve of Halloween I made a decision that probably changed the direction in which my young life was going. Now who’s to say what change is permanent or to impress permanence upon anything? How does permanence exist in this world? I ponder. And who’s to say I wouldn’t still be where I am today had I not made that decision? Those decisions upon which we look back and ask ourselves, “What if I hadn’t done that? Where would I be now?” And residing in those questions is a strong, subtle glint of longing, hope, the insatiable desire for escape of the present and endless fantasizing of a better life, a better predicament that you would have had. I warn against this. I believe it separates us from ourselves. That it fragments us into fractions of space and time, keeping us unwhole. Incompetent. Incapable. Unable to be whole until we ourselves let go - let go - of that longing, hope, insatiable desire by virtue of its insatiability.

This is the constant, neverending challenge when one lives in a world such as ours. I must always accept this challenge if I am to be at my most peaceful, tranquil, calm, balanced state of being and if I am to wield my greatest guided strength. For strength unguided is more harmful than useful. Or so I think.

A few days ago I bought The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde. I just finished the Intro. Buying this work is a big step for me I feel. It is a small and big step. It is a small step toward a bigger picture that I imagine. That for me is huge. I’ve come to terms with the truth that I deal with anxiety. Anxiety about my whole life! Now how ridiculous does that sound. Where I am and what I am doing now in my life are forcing me to deal with that. I fear to fail therefore I do not try. I have impossible expectations therefore I do not try. I have spent years carefully crafting a trap. I have spent years letting fear act through my mind, soul, and body designing a trap with seemingly no loopeholes. Except with one flaw. It was designed to fail. Failure is its consummation. Hm.

It’s dark and morning out and I still find myself incapable of sleeping. Three hours were sleep’s gift to me this night. I don’t know what it is. My less intellectually present and more spiritually present being may sense a change coming on? A transition? A transcendence? The wires are sparking, the gears are clicking - what’s going on inside here? I’m not exactly sure. But I know that I can’t sleep. That is the premise on which I deduce these possible happenings. I’m inspired. Inspiration wasted is not new to me, however. I say that in reflection of my past doings and thinkings. I am often overwhelmed by feelings of pressure to do things that are great if I am to do things at all. With this understanding I am compelled to question the origin of that feeling of expectation. I wonder if it is something I planted some time ago deeply inside of me. Because I have grown with it and in few crucial ways it has stunted my growth. Such pressure crushes inspiration. Replaces it with fear of not being good enough. Fear consumes it. Fear manifests itself in stress, anger, panic. One becomes consumed. One no longer recognizes who they are for their abilities and possibilities. Just failings. Failure to do and to be able to do. Preemptive. Premature. Lost potential. This is not the way I want to live. I don’t believe this is a way I have ever wanted to live. Unfortunately I have lived this way for many years now. I familiar with it, comfortable with it. And not happy. I don’t imagine that there is a strategic or tactical way to go about breaking down these kinds of barriers. It seems to me that one must dare. Dare to discomfort oneself, to indulge in a productive kind of fear, to try something new, something different. Even if it means breaking a way of thinking and feeling and knowing that you have held onto so so very tightly for some years now. Inside yourself you know, undeniably you know, that you won’t get very far like this. So what will you do? How will you do it? A mentor, a guide, someone I trust has suggested to me to reach out to my community. At first I didn’t quite understand; I had to ask her to clarify, please explain to me what you mean for I genuinely don’t understand how to do that. My inability to comprehend a reaching out to my community for my own personal self, needs, well-being was telling. I know that I am a child of individualism. That’s something that I have fought in some ways. In other ways it is a deep detriment. I don’t feel that I have actively reached out, but maybe I have. I wholly, unashamedly admit to a lack of objectivity when perceiving myself. I have a very distorted self-perception and do my best to get grounded. Keep reaching out. Right? That’s what I’ll tell myself. In whatever ways, all ways, little ways. It doesn’t matter, it all matters. Try things, give it a go. Looking back on recent times I have made a little bit of progress. Slowly but gettin’ there. Inside of me there’s some kind of untapped well of creativity. I don’t know what it holds, I don’t know what it looks like, or what it wants to do. I just feel it. Sometimes it’s stroking me, keeps me calm, other times it’s kind of choking me, makes me want to cry. With all that said and out, maybe I’ll doze off for a bit to the sounds of a city waking up at 5:43 AM.

click-click-click

I’m in an interesting place in my life. I’ve made this commitment to myself. To be alone, away from home, to support myself, to live in a city, and to be uncomfortable. I’ve missed home and family and familiarity. But I felt loyalty to this commitment because it was loyalty to my self. My self made up of fragments and fabrications of tangibles and intangibles existing in compartments of physical and mental, touch and feel. It’s been rewarding thus far. That’s only to say thus far. It’s been rewarding because I’ve learned, and I willingly, purposefully put myself in a position to learn and grow and even if that means growing old. I think you can argue that part of the present is about having perspective about a future that might not and doesn’t have to look like now. It helps you survive. I’ve been living my life with a future full of uncertainty, acting it out day by day. It’s forced me to embrace uncertainty, to embrace what I do not know. For once, what I truly do not know. It’s taught me to learn that I can’t respond to the unknown of my life and of Life with the kind of fear that makes me weak. I feel the fear that grounds my feet, and I accept that, I acknowledge it, and I allow myself to feel it. But the kind of fear that makes me weak and tremble, that makes me close my eyes and shrink inside, that fear I can’t let be. And I gotta learn, I gotta keep on learning. I’m learning about life, in a different way, by living mine differently. Maybe I’ll go back to school in a couple years, I can see that happening - maybe I won’t go back to school for a loooong time or not at all, I can see that happening.

Plant a seed and watch it grow.

With another
So different from you
So different from me
I miss you painfully.
Something missing
Always something missing when not with you
Void Absence Lack
Gaping holes
Not whole complete full
When not with you.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

             You down on me
       Your tongue on me
Your hot breath on me
       Between my lips
              Between my legs

I love
Your sweat
Your fingers
Your hands
All. over. me.
Inside me

Touching, Tickling,

         Pushing, pounding

The way your eyes look up at me
The way your tongue flicks at me

The way you fuck me
                     Love me.

You know how to.

Let’s talk about Life. life. Your life my life our life
the way we live it feel it breathe it talk about it.
Tell me Tell you about life.
Our life. Lost Found Floating in between,
Here and there and where it all began
For starters between my toes and under your
eyelids. Between my lips and under
your skin. Over my neck and beside your heart.
Let’s talk about living. Living. -ing. Why
we oughta do and what choice we have
Right now Right then Right there Right where?
Time’s trippin up my livin.
So I have to remind myself of where it all
begins