Happiness = overrated

and misunderstood.

I am not happy. But, I am definitely not unhappy.

What is the adjective one can use to describe the feeling of being 100%, totally, and utterly alive?

Cause that's what I am.

Dear future Jackie,

Never forget Jackie at this moment. She makes almost no money, she doesn't own anything, and she hides in the third floor of an apartment in a city of over a million people. Her life is insanely beautiful.

Don't forget that. Don't lose that. Wherever you are, whoever you are, remember that you are cool water that can flow and change shape into whatever container holds you, and you're still the same. Don't lose your soul. There's no price that's high enough to make it worth losing. Be proud of the essence you've been able to maintain through it all. Make that your primary goal, always. Keep loving. Keep living. Keep asking questions. Keep the glass half-empty to make room for everything wonderful that comes your way. Stay as honest as you can, but don't beat yourself up too much when you aren't. Forgive yourself, and then forgive other people, because we're all in the same boat, and its not sinking, its drifting, and if you try too rigidly to direct its course, you'll miss all the wonderful places that the wind wanted to take you all on its own. Come alive. Stay alive.

-J

Why I am and am not a feminist

I had always wondered
if I was just
a fraud
parading around
in
stilettos
and my short,
short skirts
I had the ass for it, after all

I didn't look like them
but I was them.
I was all of them.

they'd laugh and call
me fruit fly
flame dame
fag hag
god-damned wannabe
art fucker,
take off your heels,
you're
your
own
prison
they said.

and it didn't matter
what I read
or thought

I raised my hand
to answer
proudly
with
perfectly
manicured nails

and you didn't listen

I sit back
and let
the ones who
looked more
like they fit the bill
speak
for
me.

-J

I don't want it

You
can take
all
your
Bikram yoga,
Memoirs,
Tea parties
and books
about
your
fucking
spirituality

I don't want it

You can take
all
your tax breaks
your
Gideon Bibles
fair-trade coffee
abstinence programs
secularist
religious
bullshit

I don't want it

You
Can
Take
It
All.

I want freedom
and it's not yours to give
so,
you can take it all
and stop
pretending
you're doing
me any
favors.

-J

Once Upon A Time In South Philly

Sometimes, all I need to re-balance is to start a new art project, bake a few cookies, remind myself what amazing people I count as friends, and marvel at what a beautiful life I have.

Some good new tunes never hurt, either.

Buenos Noches,

-J

If You Want To View Paradise

Expectation
is
the death
of imagination

maybe the fight is good
all our
stubborn tics
that we cling to
like a woolen blanket
like a child
with a boundless imagination

maybe it's our parents faults
(psychologist's wallets
need this
to be true)
or the teachers
in the failing schools
where expectation is
the only form
of acceptable knowledge

or the lovers
we bend our will to
freely, we think
until we're operating
beyond any semblance
of what we once were,
or thought we were

it's not compromise that
brings peace
it's the acceptance that
our microscopic individualities
are not to be
hammered out mercilessly
in the name
of expectation

so,
work harder

expectation
is
the death
of
imagination

-J

Re: Bukowski's 'Alone With Everbody'

I see you
in me
sometimes
quite
literally

but I see you
in me
and I wonder
if the hundreds
of others
did too

I wonder if it scared them
I wonder if they knew it
I wonder if they refused, in the end
to see even the smallest bit
of you
like them

I see you in me
and that means
the occasional nightmare
unfulfilled desires,
and grave disappointments
caused of our own volition

the overwhelming ambivalence
the genius of pure humanity
in all its faltering forms
intersect to make a whole
that will never be filled
even when I see you in me

I pray you will never be full


-J

DILFS

I kind of wonder if your kids teachers or the mothers of their friends and classmates hit you on. I would say yes, because goddamn, you're sexy. Actually, I hope they do. Because that's hot.

This post is irrelevant to anything significant. I would like to shout your hotness from a mountain, but a blog will do.

-J