The Birds Just Ate the Bees

So... let's talk about sex.

In my middle school years, I made self-pledges of abstinence from alcohol, illegal substances, and sex. The first two are still in effect, and I do not foresee the voiding of them anytime soon, if indeed they shall occur in my lifetime. So far, I have only revealed the alcohol pledge to others, and fielded questions concerning the reason behind it. That pledge shall be discussed at a different time. The pledge against illegal substances should be, I hope, self-explanatory.

The pledge against sex is a bit of a mystery to people - that is, if people actually knew about it. I had never told this pledge to anyone else, although this can be attributed to my general reticence. It was a secret shared with no one, and I felt there was no need to reveal it for any reason. My stance on the subject was clear-cut: no sex. None.

Why? Simply because I was afraid of sex. I received no advice from anyone senior to me; "the talk" never emitted from my parents' lips. The most I ever received from my parents is constant warning about trust, namely, that I shouldn't accept drinks from men. Lord knows what they could put in those innocent-looking cups of juice. Not that it mattered, because I avoid alcohol, and non-alcoholic beverages were usually self-served.

Despite the innuendo shared with friends during adolescence, the secretive, snickering chat about "making out" and "getting it on", the witnessing of couples kissing under schoolyard trees and hugging a little too intimately, I still didn't know much about sex, save perhaps for the pamphlet from my doctor. Even then, it was still a mystery. If the act was simply putting a stick-like thing in some hole on my body, then I see no reason why anyone should fret over it. Nobody frets over sticking a sausage into my mouth. Sausages are tasty, after all.

I broke that sex pledge years ago, when I realized that I was depriving myself of perhaps the greatest pleasure granted to man. Man is an animal, and should not deny himself the enjoyment of primal instincts. Who am I to pledge abstinence, when I, like many others, could barely resist feeling my body? Such irony was noted by a close friend many years ago, and he never could figure out how I could live such an irony. Not that it matters anymore, anyways.

Still, I have yet to engage in sexual intercourse. There must exist certain conditions before I would commit to losing my maidenhead: first, that it is done with the intent of love, and not just lust; second, that it must be with someone that I can trust. Both are somewhat obvious reasons, but I have had trouble finding anyone in whom I can place complete trust. It's mainly because I grew up somewhat paranoid in the first place.

Wherever I can find this apex of human pleasure, I hope the search has not been in vain. I just hope someone can understand my masochism.

Mother of Hate

I hated people. I hated them with a roaring but insidious passion. 

Some time in high school, I made up a story about a woman who murders couples in love. As a bride-never-to-be who witnessed the groom's suicide hours before the wedding, she fumed at every sight of affection expressed by others, and would secretly target them for her nightly bloodshed. She never killed women, only men, and same-sex relationships were off her radar.

If this sounds messed up, it is. It also shows how messed up I was for many years. 

The worst part, I believe, was that I could hide that hatred. I put up facades like they're just wallpaper. It's a vice more than a virtue, and I list it as a (possible) virtue because, well, some people don't like gloomy faces.

Thus, not many people knew my hatred. Not many people knew that inside the mind of an overimaginative and off-the-bat little girl was a spiteful witch who once thought of her hometown in dystopian ruins. Not many people knew that there were some days that I wanted to run out and scream at people, and let myself go.

I managed to abandon that hatred a few months ago, with great difficulty and personal intervention. I went from distrusting everyone around me to, well, liking a lot of people. It's strange, then, to imagine that just a year ago, I did something that in hindsight was dangerously stupid.

I won't go into details about what happened that February night, but a few people know, and somehow I wished they didn't know. It would have saved them some grief. But then, they did help me through, in some way, even though I wasn't aware of their help back then. At least, I wasn't unconsciously aware of their help. I knew they are supportive, but... it's hard to explain here without deviating from the topic at hand. 

From time to time, though, I still have these hatred-moments, though not as powerful as they once were. There are still times when I feel like running away without a care, hitting people without a care. Always I rebuke myself with a "shut up and bear it" comment. After all, I've met too many nice and wonderful people to lose myself, and I certainly don't wish to hurt them.

Sometimes, though, I have to wonder: Do I really hate? Do I really want to hurt? Do I really want no harm on others?

When can the line be drawn between reason and emotion, if there is a "when"? If reason is embodied, then what difference is there between it and emotion?

Perhaps none?

Internal War

Anyone who began to know me just this semester, or perhaps the previous semester, will find it impossible to believe that I am at constant war with myself. It is not a simple two-sided war; the quote "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" finds its meaning useless in this war. Everyone and everything within me is an enemy to one another.

This war reached one of its peaks last semester, due to a mistake that quickly turned into a strife of climax, where the mental blood spilled fresh from the wounds of the many me's within me, and my body was merely a wandering, soulless battlefield. Love and hate clashed, sympathy and apathy dueled, confidence and self-pitying ripped each other asunder. Day in and day out, these forces and others filled their bloodlust and craved for more. Some days were more peaceful, some more contentious. The war never reaches an end.

I firmly believe in the quote: "The worst enemy is within the self." Terrorists are a joke, sexual predators are clowns, street crazies are buzzing little flies. Insults and tirades, shot from the mouth-guns of the dissatisfied and the angry, are merely bullets of cotton to my body-shield. No one, absolutely no one, can scare or threaten me, except myself. In fact, I fear myself more than I fear death.

Last spring was also a peak in the war, and actually got me in trouble . I cannot describe how mind-altering, how uneasy and tense, the situation was. A simple war cry had found itself from my war-torn heart to an innocent victim exterior to my body. This resulted in a stressful night and a forced move into a different dormitory. I will not describe exactly what happened that night online; any curiosity can be directed to me personally. (I actually don't mind talking about it, seeing that it's in the past, but FB isn't exactly the best place to do so. It is where my trouble started, after all)

In the midst of this internal war, one stands out the most; the fight between the war generals. Here is the only two-sided battle: the duel between Heart and Mind. I think the significance of this is self-explanatory enough for me to save further details for the boldest of inquiries.

I'm not sure when the war began, but I do remember a dream I had once, a few years ago, in which a conference between enemies was held. In that conference were many me's: Anger, Happiness, Frustration, and so forth. And in the center of the conference - perhaps it was really an interrogation - was my Reason, the only soldier of the Mind, but a powerful one, worthy to be its own army. All my Emotions wanted to overpower Reason, imprison it, use it as a war slave. They threatened it, mocked it, sneered and spat at it. No war was declared then, no event worthy of initiating the declaration was made then, but it was the beginning nevertheless of the self-war.

Sometimes I look around and wonder about the people I see. Are they fighting themselves? Are they punishing their weaknesses? Are they beginning their wars? Is it possible to have no self-wars?

I do not believe embodied peace can be achieved. Perhaps the self-war is life itself, the sole meaning of "alive", and most people just don't realize it. 

Who knows? This one doesn't, this one will never, and this one doesn't care to. Also geht Leben.

Woman of a Thousand Worlds

Would you believe that people are worlds? Each individual is a world in him/herself, or perhaps hundreds, even thousands. No matter how intelligent, beautiful, miserable, idiotic, spiteful, romantic, childish, mature, evil, courageous, alone, and a million traits we are, every one of us has at least one world within, teeming with a life of its own. Perhaps the lives we lead are no more our own than it is in possession of these internal worlds, ruled by an ecosystem of thought and flesh, emotion and reason.

Can I claim to have a thousand worlds within? I cannot say for sure. But I know, for a fact, that within me lies too many worlds living, birthing, dying, ailing, thriving, collapsing, forming. Some worlds have made contact with their little cosmic cousins, and are either at inner-galactic peace or war. I am a macrocosm of microworlds, forever teeming with the cycles of time and space.

You cannot see them. They are not physical. But you can see the skin holding them together, a cosmic membrance to hold the personal universe together. Look around you, and remember: that man screaming at the street corner, that girl walking with a cup of expensive coffee, that child laughing and running with her friends at school, that elder shuffling with a walker with a bent back... those people are worlds. Those people are ecosystems within themselves. And each world has a complexity untouchable by human comprehension....