joy silentbob division 020918 ... kyla schöner Götterfunken 060716 ... dries&hardens which like nearly all other things reminds me that my joy is being quite literally divided-- a two hour drive never seemed so far away which only solidifies my ambitions of going to the same college 060717 ... birdmad maybe not joy, but a certain degree of comfortable yet subdued euphoria 060718 ... leif I hesitate to use this word in my writing any more. I hate it for her namesake. I hate the way she lurks in your memories and taunts me in my daydreams. Fuck your joy for invading my present happiness. 160420 ... leif I think I loathe her. My stomach sits in knots when you spend time together. 160524 ... leif At least I've gained this word back. 180327 ... kerry i first saw you, at the barbecue for our department right before fall term. you were tiny, tanned, so nonchalantly witty, just arrived from california. i was incredibly pale, awkward, and afraid of you. i felt like the extra, because i was supposed to be a year ahead. “you would’ve been with us if you hadn’t deferred,” yaakov had said. you never asked me anything outright, just said one time--we were at my apartment on 7th, eating ice-cream on the gray pull-out couch--that you wouldn’t want to pry, but you were curious. if i ever wanted to talk about it. about them. i do sometimes, with you now. on that same couch i told you some secret things and you realized before i had the chance to be embarrassed or ask you not to repeat them, that they were very secret precious things, and that made me feel safe with you. and on that couch much later i brushed your hair because you asked me to, said it was something that you missed, and that you’d brush mine. it reminded me of summer evenings when i’d sit with my older cousin, my head in her lap, and she’d comb my hair or fold up a little triangle of paper and trace all the outlines in my face, and i’d practically drift off into some other dimension. right before halloween you asked if i wanted to do a costume together. I was still afraid of you and the thought of being alone with you was terrifying. but i took it as such a compliment and i went to that thrift store with you, the one that’s only open on saturdays where i got that electric kettle, and we found two polyester clown suits, with pom-poms and giant ruffled collars. and we were both swimming in them, which made it funnier. i was happy to be a clown with you. i have a picture on my fridge of us as clowns, yelling joyously. you’re sticking your tongue out and my make-up is totally smeared. (did i ever tell you that yaakov once called you my wife? I think he was just jealous.) near the end we’d smoke a joint before workshop and smirk through the entire three hours. once during our break, we went behind the building and sat side by side on a fallen tree and smoked a joint and one of us, i forget who, was crying. our story had gotten ripped to shreds by the professor we both loathed. i think i was the one crying. i was also crying on the greyhound bus while texting you and you said “dude if you hadn’t been here with me i would’ve burned this whole fucking place to the ground.” that really killed me. In a good way. i knew we were friends that winter when you told me how awful you’d been feeling, that you had lisa’s car while she was in antarctica and wanna drive up the coast, get the hell out of here? we barely talked. we stopped to watch whales at a cottage on a rock overlooking the ocean. you saw some rental condos and pulled over, eighty a night, and after we smoked and took a walk on the beach we came back and you said “i’m gonna go take a nap” and shut the door and for me that sealed the deal. i have been meaning to ask you, does it feel like a burden to have such a name? i feel joy when i think of visiting you in a few days. and that is not a pun, not as i mean it. you say you’ve got mexican tile and cement and we’re going to make planters, you have facepaint so will i let you paint my face? absolutely. and i’m going to sleep in my little nook as always, and when he gets up i’lll hear him opening and eating a can of beans and clicking away at his computer and you will be making tea and puttering around and i will feel so rested. 210826 ... tender_square it’s the propulsion of steps in succession, a gradual strengthening, the seconds shaved from total time. the quiet morning that is mine. the reverie of shade and circling the edges. the sun strokes my cheek as i weep, crossing the footbridge. i am grateful for breath, for patience before i dive as bunnies do into the underbrush, leaping fast into my “one wild and precious life.” 220619 ... Soma With a brain wired for grief, at the soft age of ten I called out, "Oh mother! Oh, father! Pray, family and friends!" I opened my mouth, I tried to have words I found where I started Whole blue oceans swirled But if they could hear it All they would say Was "she's quite a young lady Just daydreaming all day." I wandered my ocean That miserable sea Ne'er queried or questioned if such depths were for me Why struggle, why bother? Be crushed in the waves. "After all it's but fitting, It's the way life behaves." In those days I floundered coughing, panting, half-drowned "After all we are blessed by trials God brings around!" I spent so long in that ocean Mixed up in those waves I taught myself swimming And often I blathed I learned with some help (I thank you, dear meds) How to climb from the ocean of thoughts in my head These days I am happy, for the first time I'm free No more drowning in oceans — It's warm beach for me! You never left me, my blue turned to red I thank you all dearly, for each thing you've read. I stand on the beaches I crow out "I've won! I've found the true meaning of loving someone... They're psyche, they're soma — The loved one is me!" And here in the red Maybe that's who I'll be. My words not from grief But from something much more. As I learn that just swimming Is nice now that there's shore. ♥ 221008 ... tender_square we have a right to joy in the face of so much suffering. are we going to merely survive or are we going to live with every brilliant facet that the word entails? 230211 ... epitome of incomprehensibility ioie_de_vivre 230212 ... e_o_i ...by which I mean joie_de_vivre, but yes. 230212 what's it to you? who go blather from