Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Berlin St. Croix

Graphic by Tadhg Aidan O'Higgins

<Alyce, wearing a black turtleneck, a black miniskirt and Army boots, sits on a stool on center stage, eerily reminiscent of the dark poet Berlin St. Croix.>

<A spotlight illuminates her face, and she begins to speak>

Life is so messed up sometimes, like that Rolling Stones line, "You can't always get what you want, but you find sometimes that you get what you need."

Yeah, like that happens.

But sometimes you've just got to move on, get past those feeble desires, weighing you down, sucking out your heart, kicking your spleen with cleats. You just say to yourself, "Self, get over it." And you do.

It's hard sometimes to be friends with people when, in the back of your mind, you've always wanted something more. Like, you're hanging out in their apartment, thinking, "Damn! I could swim in those eyes." And they're wandering aloud why the Comedy Channel stopped airing Ren and Stimpy.

So instead of saying what you're really thinking — which is, "Your hair looks great today. Could I ruffle it?" — you say, a la Ren, "Stimpy, you're so stupid. The Comedy Channel has pustules!" And you both laugh.

Sometimes you've just got to say to yourself, a la Carlos Castenada, "Self, you've got a choice here. You can either make yourself miserable or make yourself strong. And miserable is only cool in coffee houses."

Let's face it: love is a conscious decision. You have to give yourself permission to love somebody. There's that moment where you say to yourself, "Self, I think I'm in love." And if you tell yourself right then, "Stop being ridiculous; go do your kickboxing tape and forget about it," then it's easier to turn the spigot off.

Of course, the decision is easier when you know you were rejected twice by the same friend. So you say to myself, "Self, no sense going down that path again. After all, you've got your dog." And you pat your dog on the head and laugh ironically.

Why does society try to make us believe romantic love is the highest kind of love and that no other relationship is worth anything? Society should be kicked in the nads. Speaking from personal experience, most romantic relationships are more trouble than they're worth.

I'm not good in love. I become, in the immortal words of Wayne's World, a psycho hose-beast: too defensive, paranoid, needy. <She snorts derisively> Can you believe it? That's not me at all.

So why do I become possessed with this darker self when I'm in love? Fear of being hurt. Which, ironically, is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Isn't that a riot? Makes me want to break something...

Sometimes I wish I could just rise above all this material nonsense, above the body. Float up there in space somewhere, where everything is poetry and light ... and maybe a couple cappuccinos and a vampire movie or two.

Sometimes I think to myself, "Self, there you go, being melodramatic. Life is easier than you think. Stop being such a drama queen."

I guess I have a point. I guess I'm lucky to have the friends I have. These friendships have given me more than most of my romantic relationships. And none of them have ever used my phone to call another girlfriend long distance, or waited until they married me to say, "I don't know if I love you," or....

<She curls her fists in balls for a second and then relaxes again>

I don't waste time worrying whether my friends like me. I don't waste time worrying if there's a hidden message beneath what they say. I don't play those kind of games with my friends. I just read my poetry to them and stomp on their fingers if they don't like it.

This all reminds me of something a guy said to me once in a gay bar. I was there with a gay friend, having just gotten out of a devastatingly draining and emotionally overwrought, dangerous and completely hideous relationship. Kind of like Natural Born Killers but without all the murders.

A guy at the bar took pity on me and bought me a drink. Guys always buy me drinks in gay bars. I think they want to be me.

As I took a sip, he said, "Repeat after me: Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn my inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

You wouldn't expect a life-changing moment to come from someone in a gay bar quoting Dune at you. But I felt as if I was in exactly the right place at the right time, as if some force in the universe had sent exactly the right person into my path to give me the knowledge I needed.

Bless him, wherever he is. And bless Frank Herbert, and gay bars, and all my many friends. Unless you don't like my poetry.

<black out>

Copyright 2003 by Alyce Wilson
Image by Tadhg Aidan O'Higgins

Musings Index

What do you think? Share your thoughts
at Alyce's message board (left button):