Tuesday, May 29, 2012

My Despair Has Begun to Exhaust Itself, But My Voice Has Not and Never Will


I thought she was beautiful and raw when I first heard her voice and watched "Criminal" on Mtv, but I couldn't articulate why her music meant what it meant to me at such a young age. Now when I think of beautiful and raw, I recall the way cutting released endorphins though my skin remained broken and exposed to the world's impurities.

Now I see and understand how similar we were and are, and I couldn't feel more blessed to have been fortunate enough to exist because my emotions and the power of music allowed me to BE MYSELF.

I am not a victim nor have I ever been; I have just been outspoken and real without any fear nor regret about exposing the things, whether my perception of their magnitiude is grand whereas others believe minute, that have manifested in my short life when society and high school cliques, today and ten years ago, would rather I keep them to myself. 

My sorrow is my sorrow. Your sorrow is your sorrow.
There is no degree of pity that my ability to be open has ever warranted, and there is no degree of my pain that has been worth anyone's discounting.  

The human condition is sometimes held captive, and on the other hand let loose, by its own vulnerability to all types of discontent and happiness. What the human condition deserves most is immunity from any rating system that serves to quantify emotions as anything but just. 
"Everybody sees me as this sullen and insecure little thing. Those are just the sides of me that I feel it's necessary to show because no one else seems to be showing them." --Fiona Apple

Friday, May 4, 2012

Without it, Life is Wasted Time

At six, Steve Winwood introduced me to the power of crying when I was deeply touched. At 22, I could no longer listen without allowing him to repeatedly break my elementary heart with that divine sound; without remembering how hard I tried to talk some sense into my father and without reliving in my mind, the irregular rhythm my pulse took while hearing him tell my stepsister how much he loved her while I stood beside them yearning for him to voice the same towards me. At 28, I began letting go; the wishes to cradle the poignant past with all the fibers left of my being, transient; finally fleeting. And now, James Vincent McMorrow revitalizes the power that crying holds upon you when you are profoundly saddened by the involuntary forfeiture of things once capable of love during the good-natured, infantile hours of your life. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try to resist and fight back, I guess certain things will always stop you dead in your tracks; you’ll always be looking for that same higher love you still haven’t found. I accept and now know that the past is a place worthy of visiting not permanently living, but the child in us all never dies and deserves to exist somewhere beside us: either clinging on to us while we go through the motions, or waiting in the wings to offer us comfort when the promises that we are after remain broken as we continue facing our uncertainties while standing out there independently in all of our yearning, and wondering if there must be someone who’s feeling for us.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Past-Life-Line

I know why those who love me continuously tell me to change, to be more upbeat and happy, but I wonder if they know that circumstances in one's life tend to introduce them to comfortably, uncomfortable sensations. Sensations that in their own right, stain the past, present and in some cases the future, too. It's like Shakespeare said, "To thine own self be true." I am true to all that is Neda. I can’t apologize for the presence of incomplete human emotions in others. I am for the tenth time in my short life, willing to be open while I seek the stability raped of me by others; others whom I don't know whether to love or hate and whom I love and hate. I find it one of life's greatest conundrums; a lot of people just wrap a Band-Aid around a cut and move forth, others are told not to cry about it and, if you will, man up, but I, I just keep cutting. When I bleed, that's when I feel. Pouring peroxide on a wound, for me, is an excruciatingly, uninviting sensation though it lasts but a meager instant. It's the dismembering and remembering of my father's spirit. It's remembering the past, documenting its wraithlike wind, rewriting it, revitalizing it and allowing it to tap into its own memory, while the scent of cigarettes cinched into my grandmother's silk nightgown remains on the tip of my nose which no longer reserves that place nestled into her deep clavicles while I sleep. It's a sense of comfort tied to the struggle of trying to duplicate these things, knowing that the past is the only feat that's impossible for anyone to ever conquer. I keep asking myself if there is a way to make others understand how necessary the magnificent, albeit at times unimpressive, minutes of my past are obligatory to my survival, and now I see that there may never be a way and frankly, I no longer care to question if one is even necessary.

I am this life.
I am here to shout it from the rooftops.
The past is the only lifeline that some of us have.
I want to secure my thoughts a valid presence, here at this moment in this particular life; attachments to the past MAKE US WHO WE ARE.
I don’t need to feel this intense desire that something needs to be removed, discounted, or let go of in order for me to move forth.
It was something not even the most privileged people will ever be given the chance to experience. It taught me sorrow and without sorrow, I would have never realized how badly I wanted peace. It taught me peace and without peace, I would have never become the empathetic, kind person I am.
I am independent.
I am my father’s daughter.
I am Margrit Khankhanian’s granddaughter.
I am worthy of happiness.
I am deeply in love with feeling anything.

I live, breathe and dream the past; and that, that is the kind of excruciating sensation I am faithful to no matter how many times it hits; every morning, day or night, when I realize it is time to wake up, live or sleep.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Zola Jesus - Skin





This is going to be quite possibly the hardest assignment I have ever had to accomplish. I know that I will relive all the tears I had shed in order to write these poems in the first place, and I know that I will shed many more in order to immortalize my past within my thesis. I pray that afterwards, I will find myself in the most calming of places. I will walk away a learned poet, with skin tougher than it has ever been, hopelessly devoted to my adolescence; having found it a home within bound pages in which it will always stay loud, carefree and young.

Friday, January 13, 2012

The Truth Hurts

I wonder if it'll ever stop; this decade-old blue funk I've been in crisscrossed by the most minute inklings of my own, personal pacificity. I am hopeful and more productive than I have been in a long time and still my subconscious willingly opens its arms, welcoming the tricks that this world plays upon the strings of my heart without any remorse.
I've been told to keep my true life quiet, but I can't; this is me. I speak about it all, everything that you find negative within me in hopes that someday, someone can find the courage to do it too. I have been told to make change happen instead of sulking. I want the life I know I deserve, and I'm here to tell you that I will never stray away from exposing what I deem necessary. I am not a victim but I am very sad and I refuse to be ashamed because I am. This is me and it always has been. I am no longer the one who waits for change to happen, and I will never again let you tell me that the reason things remain the same is because of any wrongdoing on my part. I am deeply trying, here, and at this very moment, there is nothing, nothing, NOTHING left for you to say.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Can I Ever Get It Back?

I used to write short stories while everything exciting was happening to those around me. If I cared to join them then the excitement in my life would have never seen a chance. I believe that I had something that couldn't be touched. Something that kept me speaking; tangled in cherished discourse with characters I had never met in real life, even though if this took the shape of my real life, I would never have one qualm with it. Birthing the climatic situations of their lives came easy; it's fortifying any present execution of them that has become trying.
Writing began when I was a happy sixth grader; when the excitement of being in junior high and then high school prompted daydreaming in class about the crush I had that present hour, which then allowed my characters to share a kiss or act out that teenage relationship that I wouldn’t see until the tenth grade and then mourn its loss for what seemed like forever after. Writing began when I was impressionable, morphed into something necessary to survive when I no longer was and died when I realized there was nothing left to fight for.
Every year when I clean out my past stored in plastic bins upon plastic bins, I come across that black pee chee folder torn at its fold, filled with 150 stories I spent writing either in Mr. Kidder's American Government or at home on Wednesday nights watching Party of Five, while my parents hollered in excitement at the NBA playoffs emanating through that little Toshiba television set that will live long with an unsavory reputation, yet with a twinge of something that will always make me smile in service of it.
All I heard then was the sound of happiness. I only wish pleasant stimulation could hit me the way it did then, now.

Monday, January 9, 2012

It's Been 365 Days

You have brought me the most insatiable appetite for love. You are the man I've always dreamt of and written about. You make me want nothing more than to write the best fairytale ending that any story has ever seen. It’s been 365 Days. No other man has ever crossed this threshold and I thank you for loving me longer than they ever thought possible. Thank you for believing in my worthiness. Thank you for allowing me to be myself, and thank you for being the man that I miss even when you're sitting right beside me. You fuel the fire that resides deep within my longing to taste childhood again. You calm me down, gently, each time I realize I can’t. You make me want to pursue my pipe dreams and to be better at everything and to everyone that I have ever let down. You build me up with the cognizance that my writing is of respectable substance all the while trusting that I am incapable of ever having let anyone down. I am at fault more than I led on. I admit this here, without retraction. I am one stubborn woman. I have major anxiety and dislike when you try to fix it. I react in ways a reserved lady never should. I am an angry little bitch. I have a major crush on you. I am thankful for all that had happened before I came around, even though I know it hurt. I fear things like the future, but I embrace all the uncertainty that comes with this strange love. This is one rollercoaster I’d wait hours to ride without a Fastpass. Here’s to waiting as many years possible together. Happy anniversary to you, my 6ft-something pollywog. ♥