aaahh...like a breath of phlegm-filled air. my throat is burning, my head is yurning, and my stomach is churning. why the fuck do i have to get sick when i have so much to do?

why the fuck do i have to be so passive? i need what i deserve and i should get what i need.

thats sounds fuckin entitled. damn, i think i have really low self-esteeem, but i hide it and i dont admit it because im simultaneously very full of myself.

i need to leave this place, even for just a few days, try and get to the beach. try and focus on myself, do nothing, and appreciate just that.

i forget that i feel very alone. that most of my time is surrounded by people, but that im stuck only knowing myself, and only able to trust myself.

i want to breathe.

i want to feel fulfilled and i need to stop lying.

passion, one said, that is what fills this place. its dedication and persistency. its being cautious but over-extending yourself. its pushing everything in every direction.

consider passion, lauren. thats you. passionate. and fuck, if it means ill be called an anti-semitic, pretentious art-fag, self-righteous slut. thats you.

fuck israel. the apocolypse is coming, right, and everyone is going to have wake-up to the reality that jesus isnt coming back and jews really arent the chosen people, and jerusaelum is just a city where blood was spilt...
g-d doesnt love anyone more than hirself, and the only thing you learn in college is: "i am better than you!"

much love
~L

and my entry to a long void of guilt-driven prose has finally arrived...and now i feel it manifesting, falling into the title of pretentious.
lately i feel like a snob, like a creature of high altitude and noble cause. and i hate every ounce of it.
i help teach this class...and really, when the professor goes home at 3 everyday, i field the questions, evertything and anythign. mostly its the small, tedious ones...the little how to's and what about's. i love it, i do. but now i feel this pressure like im supposed to be the keeper of all this information. everyone's golden ticket to succcessful work...and i think i let it get to my head sometimes. i think i forget that im just like everyone else. and omigod i dont have time to finish that article for the record. goddamn antioch feels ilke a joke. i cant waste anymore time.
i cant pretend im not living. i cant wait for things to happen. i need to live the happenings.
everyone's moving out...d and b are leaving. i thinnk im going back to campus living... ugh. although i may tire of the back and forth rumbling of skateboards above my head at 4 in the morning, having to live in shared filth, and pretending the world ceases to exist beyond my dorm- ill be able to let go of the "stability" ive been so used to here-in my off campus housing. this "stability" is something ive been getting too comfortable with. forgetting about the frenzy and the hysteria that comes from being uprooted, torn, and removed from any sense of place- any meaning of home. i dont know home. i cant feel home. right now is just a decent substitute. i cant wait to get the fuck out of school. start experiencing different homes...they say its not a pipe...then is it what i make of it?

im listening to the fruit...or what, in the 6th grade, we called the fruit: ode to my family, the cranberries...
in many ways i owe my family so much. and in so many ways i still can't return those favors, those endeavors...raising me and my little sister, those long long nights when i wet the bed, those nightmare trips to hospitals with needles that scared me to death- to write on the walls wrapped in a curtain...
my mom is amazing.
but i fight her more than anyone i know.

maybe i just like to fight.

but i think i just want to love.

i think i just need to be loved.

mariel is coming...in about 20 mins. she will live here, here in yellow springs, here down the road at the outdoor education center, here in ohio. im excited. im nervous. im anxious. and i have "thank--the-lord-this-road-trip-is-over-yogurt-covered-pretzels" to giver her and a "babies suck" logo. i love that girl. im just worried ill stop.

nite

long long ways from here, speeding down roads where no one can hear me belting til my throat goes dry. i find im an escapist on those hills, in those tiny dug up towns dotted with fogged bars with trucks lined up outfront. i use bright lights blinding others, and sloppy, i knock the cherry from my cigarrette into the clean rented upholstery. dollar and speed signs pass my periphery and even those sirens can't remind me of where i am.
sleeping in someone else's bedsheets washed in liquid detergent, on pillows that still hold last night's perfume, i am not home. i have the rich girl disease today and i decide i am a princess. columns on houses whiter than their oil of olay face wash and french-tipped pedicures. its contagious, i decide- like conjunctivitis- getting it from the bed and embroidered terry cloth towels in the bathrooms.
newspapers telling you how to dress and ripped jeans are a sign of abandonement. and when you park your BMW dont be afraid to move it because we all drive to impress others.
trellised gardens, topiaries in the shape of crosses, and gazebos i nickname gazebras. smoked salmon and strawberry lunches...i am full.
and i return to the heartland, half surprised i can still survive, half impressed i am to be grateful. because sometimes i want three-hundred dollar shoes, well-exfoliated skin, and a spray-on tan.
sometimes i wish someone would clean my bathroom and feed me chocolate dipped fruit.

im trying. i really i am. in the last 6 days i only took one day to sip some of that earthy bold red wine. that red wine that i crave on my lips each night because, yes, im an addict. yes, im an alcoholic. i cant believe im even writing it on here. i guess im partly doing it because i really want a drink right now and the only thing stopping me is the fact that im typing and cant get up to get a drink,. of course i could stop typing, get up, make myself a drink. i could also go out for Fela's birthday with everyone and have a drink, probably several. and maybe id really have fun. do a little dancing...be a little gay...but im also kinda sick. i have a sore throat that itches and coughs and until i took 2 tylenol, had a splitting headache. actually, ive had a headache everyday for almost a weeek. and i dont know if its related to not drinking. is it really withdrawl? i mean, i dont even drink that much when i do drink. and when i start to talk to anyone about my problem...they usually say something like, "but you dont drink that much..." and really, i dont...at least not compared to the amount of drinking most antioch students do. but its not the amount...its what i feel when i do or dont drink. its this inner drive i have to drink. to feel compelled to take it, never leave it, finish it, always leave a cup dry. its like my mouth is always on fire and needs a drink to put out the flames.
the only problem is the foresight i have to look ahead at the opportunities i will have to drink, and the seemingly impossible response to just say no.
i have to avoid it...create distractions, aversions...when usually the distraction is the poison itself.
the poison...i fucking love it, or i love to hate it. and now that im admitting it, admiting my problem...i feel this great paranoia that everyone is trying to help me avoid it. people are making a conscious effort to keep it from me. offering tea. hiding it. i dont know. it makes me want it more. i dont want tea. i dont want juice. i want that poison that i know hurts me. kills me. drowns me. eats me.
im sick.
i made a "bum me a poem" piece today. a cigarette pack that offers scrolled poetry instead of nicotine...my next deadly habit. im going to give that one up too.
damn, fuck my 21st birthday. 2 weeks until there are no restraints.

I had lice every year of my childhood. fine-toothed combs and trash bagged dolls. The Haggadah came to life and yet I was free. I was free with my white skin to move in and out...back and forth...up and down. I never suffered, I never died. My grandmother always told me to keep climbing. never stop. don’t look back. but always carry the weight of those who did and those who will, and so she said: pass over me and reach beyond these words and fill a hole that was never dug and lace your own boots and load your own gun and say a prayer for every day you are born again and build strength to construct bridges and plant seeds for new growth and wash your hands of hell because there is no hell and the only hell you’ll know is a plague and that plague is within you.

is it somewhere between yiddish and english that i've lost my grandmother? have i lost her because she hasn't called or because i haven't called her? am i fooling myself into thinking i could pretend she doesn't exist...or does she only exist when i want her to... and now, now that shes sick.
im so tired of reading about cancer, breastmilk contamination, endometriosis, ovarian cancer, asthma, and lymphoma...why the fuck am i reading and theorizing about it when its happening to my family? how come i cant write a 25 page research paper on antiracism but i can talk and try to live it everyday? how come i cant sleep at night from all the anxiety thats come over me? the hype the hysteria the frenzy

i cried on and off all day saturday. i looked like a fuckin stoner at the end of the day and still made my way to genderfuck feeling like a trainwreck. i got a nosebleed and left. i never get nosebleeds.

i dont cry about these thigns. they arent that bad. my llife isnt that hard. im extremely lucky.
im oversimplifying this.

i need to get out

mariel has been writing me. she misses me. she says she still loves me.

my grampa used to call me cacaputs. it means little shit maker. i miss him terribly.

on writing a prose poem...

i feel like im letting tiny particles of dust escape from my mouth.
little by little it begins to thrust itself up toward the roof of my mouth, the palette of my plate: the prose of my poem. it tickles my teeth and coughing is an explosion of leftover rumors and rooms of mirrors. im a fossil of collected olds and ends. the rust of one hundred year old copper. im green with the imperfection of my profession.

did someone say alliteration?

goddamn livejournal feels like a lie.

im taking a break.
everyone says not to drop the class. they tell me its not worth it. that i feel so much better when im done and less like ive been defeated...which is something i already feel. defeated
similar to the feeling i have about getting out of shape, what happened to my muscles?!?! similar to the feeling of not being able to quit smoking.
im so frustrated. earlier i couldnt even sit down. actually, now that i think of it, i dont remember sitting down at all today. yet somehow i still didnt move.
worked with frank today. he almost made me cry. but for good reasons this time. he was so cute picking up sticks in the yard. he allowed me to take pictures of him while he seemed to drift off into some sort of nostalgic state. oh reminiscing can be so much fun.
ahhh...i have the strangest cramp in my right leg, inner thigh.

ahh...today i kept dropping things... (well in the last few days now, i have noticed it...2 broken glasses!) in the photo house i dropped my film which was in a light safe container and it opened and got exposed....2 fuckin rolls down the drain.
i also lost my car key today 3 times. it was always in the most obvious place when i found it.
ohhhh!! the hip-hop conference was great. it helped me with my paper interestingly enough.
damn, D and B are sleeping together over at the place wheer D is housesitting. they invited me. am i malicious to think they KNEW i cuoldnt go? especially after looking like a zombie at dinner, whining about how much work i have to do..,they must have known. well..iguess the idea is outta sight, outta mind.
but maybe im a outta my mind right now. actually i might be.
i dont feel like i can relate to too many people right now. but i miss my friends!
well.. back to the fight. ....

distraction... it can be pleasantly satisfying.
(sigh)
what a rough day. the worst part is i dont even know if the tears i cried were worth the ruddy complexion they gave me. well, im not really that shallow... i sincerely didnt know if i should have been crying. for all the hell this term has been, i hadn't (until today) felt so compelely helpless. I spent all day whining and moping around...
then angry at myself for being so self-loathing.
fuck colette. and fuck environmental studies. and fuck ecofeminism.
now i dont know whether or not to drop the class or continue to put up with her shit.

but otherwise, some things were cleared up between me and B...D still hasnt talked to me yet. just drinks my wine.

i havent had fun in a long while. Someone (fuck, i hate being so vague about names and people and thngs...sometimes it seems so silly) that someone, was Fela... (i guess if im not talking shit/processing about the person, its ok to name them...well, except for Colette, i feel ok about putting her name here)... so Fela, was so sweet and came to find me hiding up in the ASC and we made plans to see India's play on saturday. sometimes i forget about good people...that they actually exist here... and Elliot too, he and i made plans to drink wine and be silly. i need that...i forget how to be silly. how to not take things so seriously. i need to take care of the people i have in my life. micah has been so good to me. ive just begun to realize how important the friends i have are. i dont really need much more....

thank you!!!