I love DH Lawrence I love DH Lawrence. He probably wouldn't think much of it. And he'd be right to. It's useful to love dead writers. No jealousy and you get to know them better over time, reading and re-reading, making the words heavier with my own experiences. Isn't that growing together too? I kissed my friend's fighting scars today and cried with shame at my ineffectuality. I wiped my tears away quickly and made him laugh. As if him seeing a failed attempt at hiding can still, somehow, restore a dignity I never had. Dignity's a kind of trinket to him. Archaic and adorable. I don't know if I should get better at hiding or go back to unrestrained waterworks. He has this odd way of being so soft and so courteous then switching suddenly into a vicious animal. I don't know which one is an act. I think they're both genuine. No, I think they're both fake. I don't know anything. Anyway, I felt loved for a while. Or maybe I felt grateful, like the first time I was naked and wanted. I didn't think I could be both at once. Maybe I was grateful that my skin wasn't repulsive. I didn't know I expected it to be repulsive until a panic started bubbling up when he was close enough to see the bumps and lines. It's funny the way deep, old fears come back to visit you once you think you've forgotten them. My newer, older body and the same virginal shyness. I wonder if women who have sex a lot...regularly...more often? I wonder if women who have sex more than me--I wonder if they do it partly to avoid this shyness. Like how your best friend doesn't notice your hair growing because they see you everyday--maybe they don't want their lovers to notice, maybe they don't want themselves to notice their bodies changing. Earlier today, someone I used to love, who misses me, told me so, in so many words. I don't know why he's so worried. I only ever successfully forgot him once and it didn't last very long. So he told me he missed me, in so many words and it didn't mean much to me, except to remind me of how useless any apologies or explanations would seem to anyone who used to love me. Particularly to the last person who used to love me, probably just because he's the last and the freshest wound. Probably. I desperately, desperately want to believe it's just that. I was taught to value being honest and vulnerable to others, to regard it as a kind of bravery--and then I learned that sometimes, all my bravery amounts to is annoyance. Oh, but it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks--what's important is that you were brave! Important to who? To me? Certainly not. I'd rather be a cowardly disappearing act than a brave, unwanted creep to some beautiful person who finds me sickening enough as it is. There's so much pressure to pretend you don't care what anyone else thinks. And those who succumb to that pressure just end up behaving like clowns so no one can accuse them of conforming. If you're afraid of being accused, you still care, clown. And besides that, you're acting like a clown, clown. I don't feel the need anymore, to make an impression. That isn't clown speaking, I've made my peace, more or less. It doesn't hurt so much to be misunderstood. And now I can laugh hard when I'm teased. |