Not for our eyes. (Based on words from a friend)

There are things that are not for our eyes.
If my mother could have googled my father she would have run, or maybe he would have, regardless I wouldn't exist.
There are things we shouldn't know, of others others, unless we are told that there are others. There should not be photographic 'proof' to mill on.  There should not be images or videos of who people are perceived to be, or want to be perceived to be, not who they are when they pause on the phone line, not the sentences they form that are intended for us, looks intended for us, words intended for us. It just gives our narrative pictures, springboards for the mind, and instead of creating things we create stories. There are things that are not for our eyes.  Things that came before and things that came after. Things that never come so we build them.

For a while, I looked for signs of who she was. Of photos or posts, or words or clues, or something that could indicate that she existed. That she tried to piss on your wall. Essentially that's what we do right, we piss on people's walls. Boys walls, girls walls, like dogs. Mark our territory through likes and comments and  here here here here I am. And I haven't marked you in a while, I haven't read you in a while I haven't spoken to you in a while. I haven't seen your face, or heard your voice, I don't know if I want to, if there would be a point, but yet it's okay that we're intertwined. It's an agreement we made before all of this, that, and the offense of pulling out at this moment would make something out of nothing, or maybe it wouldn't. And I hid you on some-things, others I can't.  So I'm thrown some of you, and you me, and our feeds cross and our friends cross. It seems quite stupid feeds crossing, when two actual voices can't even speak.


You built me, and I built you. You'll build someone else, and I will too. It's what you do with the person who is there in the morning that matters, and maybe our stories didn't hold up, maybe hers will, maybe his will.

And the thing is we all build people. Create a narrative to suit ours, regardless of word bites, and photofeeds, tweets, and updates, and likes and dislikes. Since humans met they've been building narratives. 'I like the line of his cave drawing of an antelope he must be sensitive. " " His shoulders are broad he'll be a good provider and husband". "Her hip to waist ratio means she must be fertile" is replaced by a million meanings for an arm touch.  "He listens to NPR, so someday we'll listen to Ira Glass on Sunday mornings while making pancakes with our two point five children". We fill in blanks after a beer, a glass of wine, some coffee, a night. Eventually though those memories fade until the next contact or were eventually replaced by actual reality.  We built a frame and replaced it with solids when we knew the foundation was there, in relationships, in friendships in everything. We earned actual facts and in the meantime our imagination held places for some, not all but some.

There are things that are not for our eyes. Before this there were people we never knew existed that we never knew to build. People I will never meet, that might live miles away. People with bright eyes, or too much eyeliner, who like the same music, or have bad taste in music. There are people who travel,  and seem sweet, or sexy, or trashy, or simple or  just different, or some other adjective I choose to put on them based on mere pages. People whose very existence make me seem like a stalker. People who probably don't know I EXIST.  People who I wouldn't recognize in the grocery store.  I'm sure some have built the narrative around mine, around digital me, one that is far more exciting than the reality. And I'm sure there's a girl somewhere thinking I'm another's other, pissing on someones wall. And the truth is if she or I just built stories around ourselves, and lived those stories, we'd both have more to show for it.

Stairwells

written on my iphone while with teenagers, teenagers who were ever so much cooler than me.

Dear God,
if ever I have a daughter please give her the common sense to wear shorts that cover her ass and not sit in stairwells late at night with Argentinian film/writer/actor boys. Even if they do quote Salinger. Or any film/writer/actor boys who are emotionally aware but not emotionally available, ok, no film/writer/actor boys, ever, fine, in stairwells at least. No stairwells. Even if they claim to be Southern or Midwestern or Southwestern.. Or Jewish or from unassuming central Pennsylvania. Please let her understand that New York and Paris are places for more than shopping. Please don't have her wear liquid eyeliner she's too fair for it, it disguises her eyes, she'll have time to do that. Please let her have convictions in the music she loves, that she not swallow all notes placed in her ears. Please allow her to take compliments and give them freely, genuinely. Please let her not need to always raise her hand and be ok with just knowing for herself, please let her speak when moved to clearly. Please let her know how to use a plunger and a vaccuum and reset our VCR clock or DVD clock or whatever space media clock we'll have then if we use one. Please let her not wear heels that look like transvestite shoes while at summer camp.
Please let her never utter the phrases 'lame' 'total' 'omg' or 'kewl' unless ironically. Please let her not confuse sensitivity with weakness or intelligence with uncoolness. And let her know that her mother was once one of those eager girls who raised her hand and was late to heartbreak from writer/actor/ film boys on stairwells but quickly moved to stoops, and rooftops, rivers and reservoirs. And hoped one day she'd be lucky enough to have a daughter even a fictitious one.
And if you can't do all these things God, can you at least let her be tall?

dear internet

I fear I secretly hate you. Before you, the things I shouldn't know I didn't. You have made me care about things i don't, and made me want to see people i don't care about, doing things and going places I never knew I wanted to see. You have made me instantly connected yet sitting on my hands; saying too much, too little. You have made me want to be heard, heard, heard, seen, seen, seen, here, here, here, but not be. You have helped me build narratives around past loves and likes, and future maybes and their future and past maybes. You have made me google instead of question, answer instead of sit in the not knowing. You have led me to type this. To self indulgently type this, to feel like I'm speaking, to feel like there is someone, something on the other end, proof. that I am heard, heard, heard, seen, seen. seen, here, here, here but alone. You have shortened my attention span, and given me friends I never speak to, invites to places I never go to, and letters i can't hold in my hand. You have given the anonymity to be callous, use poor grammar, to love, disregard capitalization, and feel so hard all over someone's inbox or wall. You have made me tweet, ping, and chirp and make noises no one listens to, without regard to music or song. You have assisted me in ultimatums, orations, appointments, and disappointments, apologies, and offers. You have made me brave, and weak, and sensitive, and overloaded.
You have in confidence given me a blank space, a true canvas, and this, this is how I fill it, not always because I have something to say, but because I can.